Altera Corporation

Mario E Guzman

Andy Louie Lee

Christopher F Lane

Keith Duwel

Chris Lane

Kerry S Veenstra

Brian D Johnson

Ninh D Ngo

Michael Fairman

Tim Allen

Bryan H Hoyer

Srinivas T Reddy

Myron Wai Wong

Wanli Chang

Ketan H Zaveri

Ping Xiao

Weiying Ding

Quyen Doan

Circuitry on an integrated circuit is provided that may be used to program fuses such as polysilicon fuses. Fuse programming may be performed using an elevated power supply voltage. Other circuitry on the integrated circuit may be powered using a standard power supply voltage that is less than the elevated power supply voltage. Fuse sensing may be performed using the standard power supply voltage. A control block may be used to produce a fuse programming control signal. Power-on-reset circuitry may monitor the elevated power supply voltage and may produce a corresponding elevated power supply voltage power-on-reset signal indicative of whether the elevated power supply voltage is valid. The power-on-reset circuitry may also produce a standard power supply power-on-reset signal indicative of whether the standard power supply voltage is valid. The power-on-reset signals may be used in controlling fuse programming and fuse sensing.

Integrated circuits with fuse programming and sensing circuitry

Integrated circuits such as programmable logic devices are provided that have circuit blocks such as memory blocks. The integrated circuits may be tested to determine whether the circuit blocks contain defects. If defective circuitry is identified, switching circuitry in the circuit blocks can be configured to switch redundant circuitry into use. Repairs may be made by loading repair data into fuses on the integrated circuit. Each circuit block may have an associated control circuit with a unique address. A master block repair controller may be used to route repair data to each control circuit over a shared bus using the unique addresses of the control circuits. Each control circuit may have register circuitry into which addresses and repair data are loaded. Testing circuitry may be used to supply test signals. Multiplexing circuitry can selectively route either the test signals or repair data to the control circuits over the shared bus.

Integrated circuit with redundancy

A programmable logic system includes a reconfigurable programmable logic device and configuration storage that stores at least two configurations. A default configuration loads first and then loads the desired user application configuration. If the user application configuration fails, the system saves data regarding the failure and then returns to the default configuration for recovery. The default configuration, after reading the failure data, causes an operator to be called to intervene, or loads a different (e.g., previous) configuration if one is available in configuration storage. The system is particularly useful where the user can update configurations remotely. In an alternative mode, the system stores only the user configuration (which is loaded first) and the default configuration. If a newly-loaded configuration fails, the default configuration is loaded and signals the operator or takes other action short of loading a different configuration.

Reconfigurable programmable logic system with configuration recovery mode

A sensing circuit senses the programmed state of fuses such as polysilicon (poly) fuses. In a preferred embodiment, the sensing circuit comprises first and second amplifier stages, a fuse and a reference resistor wherein the fuse and the reference resistor are connected, respectively, to first and second inputs of the first amplifier stage. The first and second amplifier stages are differential amplifiers and the output of the second amplifier stage is buffered. Circuitry for programming the fuse is part of the sensing circuit.

Fuse sensing circuit

A reconfigurable device loads I/O configuration information from a diagnostic interface during testing. The device includes a configurable I/O connection for communicating values with other devices. A diagnostic interface communicates the value of the I/O connection to a tester. A diagnostic controller in the device has a first mode for communicating the value on the I/O connection to the tester via the diagnostic interface, and a second mode for receiving an I/O configuration attribute value for the I/O connection from the diagnostic interface thereby modifying the configuration of the I/O connection. The device also includes a configuration controller that retrieves device configuration information from a configuration device in response to a signal. The signal can originate from an external source or from the diagnostic controller in response to a configuration instruction received via the diagnostic interface. The diagnostic interface may be a JTAG interface.

I/O configuration and reconfiguration trigger through testing interface

An electronic device comprises a first plurality of configuration elements connected as a shift register for programming a subset of the programmable functions of the electronic device. The subset of programmable functions may be reprogrammed by loading configuration data into the first plurality of configuration elements such that the subset of programmable functions may be reprogrammed without necessarily reprogramming other programmable functions of the electronic device.

Configuration shift register

A programmable logic device is provided in which logic array blocks (LABs) may be programmably configured for use as one of a variety of memory structures. The configurable memory structures may have separate read and write addresses, thereby making it possible to implement a variety of memory structures such as FIFO memory, ROM, RAM, and shift-registers.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Mario E Guzman