Programmable Silicon Solutions

Altera Corporation

Seeq Technology, Incorporated

Other

Mosel Vitelic Corporation

Kilopass Technology, Inc.

Ting-Wah Wong

David K Liu

Chong Woo

Kelvin Yupak Hui

Clement Szeto

David Kuan-Yu Liu

Mong-Song Liang

Harry Luan

Yue-Song He

Gheorghe Samachisa

George Smarandoiu

Cheng C Hu

Chien-Sheng Su

Raul-Adrian Cernea

A one time programmable nonvolatile memory formed from metal-insulator-semiconductor cells. The cells are at the crosspoints of conductive gate lines and intersecting doped semiconductor lines formed in a semiconductor substrate.

One-time programmable memory and method for making the same

A plurality of devices, such as devices that are utilized for implementing radio frequency applications, can be formed in the same substrate. Each of these devices may be formed over a triple well that includes at least one well capable of being biased. Each of the wells is coupled to a well bias through a resistor. In some embodiments, a plurality of wells operating at a relatively high frequency may be connected to the same bias potential, each through separate resistors. The noise coupling may be reduced through the use of the bias resistors.

Integrated radio frequency circuits

A nonvolatile memory cell that is highly scalable includes a cell formed in a triple well. A pair of sources for a pair of cells on adjacent word lines each acts as the emitter of a lateral bipolar transistor. The lateral bipolar transistor of one cell operates as a charge injector for the other cell. The charge injector provides carriers for substrate hot carrier injection onto a floating gate.

Nonvolatile memory

An RF circuit may be formed over a triple well that creates two reverse biased junctions. By adjusting the bias across the junctions, the capacitance across the junctions can be reduced, reducing the capacitive coupling from the RF circuits to the substrate, improving the self-resonance frequency of inductors and reducing the coupling of unwanted signals and noise from the underlying substrate to the active circuits and passive components such as the capacitors and inductors. As a result, radio frequency devices, such as radios, cellular telephones and transceivers such as Bluetooth transceivers, logic devices and Flash and SRAM memory devices may all be formed in the same integrated circuit die using CMOS fabrication is processes.

A nonvolatile memory cell which is highly scalable includes a cell formed in a triple well. A select transistor can have a source which also acts as the emitter of a lateral bipolar transistor. The lateral bipolar transistor operates as a charge injector. The charge injector provides electrons for substrate hot electron injection of electrons onto the floating gate for programming. The cell depletion/inversion region may be extended by forming a capacitor as an extension of the control gate over the substrate between the source and channel of said sense transistor.

Nonvolatle memory

Temperature sensitive devices may be shielded from temperature generating devices on the same integrated circuit by appropriately providing a trench that thermally isolates the heat generating devices from the temperature sensitive devices. In one embodiment, the trench may be formed by a back side etch completely through an integrated circuit wafer. The resulting trench may be filled with a thermally insulating material.

Isolating temperature sensitive components from heat sources in integrated circuits

An integrated inductor may be formed over a substrate. An aperture may be formed by a backside etch through the semiconductor substrate underneath the integrated inductor. The aperture may then be filled with a dielectric material. As a result of the removal of the underlying substrate material, magnetic and capacitive coupling of the inductor to the substrate may be reduced. In addition, in some cases, the presence of the dielectric may facilitate attachment of the resulting die to a leadframe and package without degrading the inductor's performance and may provide better structural support.

Integrated inductive circuits

A triple poly nonvolatile memory cell which is highly scalable includes a cell formed in a triple well. A select transistor can have a source which also acts as the emitter of a lateral bipolar transistor. The lateral bipolar transistor operates as a charge injector. The charge injector may provide electrons for substrate hot electron injection of electrons onto the floating gate for programming. The select transistor may include a gate formed as a self-aligned sidewall spacer on said sense transistor.

Compact nonvolatile memory using substrate hot carrier injection

A nonvolatile memory cell which is highly scalable includes a cell formed in a triple well. A pair of sources for a pair of cells on adjacent word lines each acts as the emitter of a lateral bipolar transistor. The lateral bipolar transistor of one cell operates as a charge injector for the other cell. The charge injector provides carriers for substrate hot carrier injection onto a floating gate.

An integrated inductive element may be formed over a substrate. A triple well may be defined in a star-shape, in one embodiment, in the substrate beneath the integrated inductive element in order to reduce eddy current losses arising from magnetic coupling between integrated inductors associated with the same integrated circuit.

Reducing magnetic coupling using triple well

A high performance integrated circuit device enables scaled low voltage transistors to be utilized as transfer gates with improved speed characteristics. At least some of the transistors are formed with thicker gate oxides and boosted positive and negative drive voltages are used with the thicker gate oxide transistors. The transfer gates may be driven by an inverter using a transistor formed in a triple well.

High performance integrated circuit devices adaptable to use lower supply voltages with smaller device geometries

An integrated inductive element may be formed over a substrate. A trench may be defined in a variety of shapes in the substrate beneath the integrated inductive element in order to reduce eddy current losses arising from magnetic coupling between integrated inductors associated with the same integrated circuit.

An RF circuit may be formed over a triple well that creates two reverse biased junctions. By adjusting the bias across the junctions, the capacitance across the junctions can be reduced, reducing the capacitive coupling from the RF circuits to the substrate, improving the self-resonance frequency of inductors and reducing the coupling of unwanted signals and noise from the underlying substrate to the active circuits and passive components such as the capacitors and inductors. As a result, radio frequency devices, such as radios, cellular telephones and transceivers such as Bluetooth transceivers, logic devices and Flash and SRAM memory devices may all be formed in the same integrated circuit die using CMOS fabrication processes.

A radio frequency device may be formed which has high power output and high transistor switching speeds. This may be done by providing thicker gate oxides and a higher supply potential to transistors utilized to form the power amplifier and using thinner gate oxides conventionally associated with high switching speed and advanced process technologies for other applications on the same integrated circuit. Thus, high switching speeds can be achieved-with some transistors which utilize a lower supply voltage and high power output can be achieved from other transistors which are coupled to a higher supply voltage. The different types of transistors may be made in the same integrated circuit fabrication process on the same integrated circuit.

Growing community of inventors

Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Ting-Wah Wong