The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 14, 1997
Filed:
Nov. 04, 1994
Richard D Freeman, San Carlos, CA (US);
Zycad Corporation, Fremont, CA (US);
Abstract
A field programmable device includes two separate and electrically isolated arrays of rows and columns of conductors sharing the same area of an integrated circuit substrate, one array interconnecting memory cells to form a random access memory ('RAM'). The other array forms a full or partial cross-point switching network that is controlled by information stored in memory cells, and/or connects to an operating electronic circuit that is configurable and operable in accordance with information stored in memory cells. In addition, the memory array is easily used to access desired nodes of the circuit array in order to be able to easily observe internal signals during operation. A preferred memory structure is a dynamic random access memory ('DRAM') because of a high density and low cost of existing DRAM fabrication techniques, even though periodic reading and refreshing of the states of the memory cells is required. Several circuits and techniques are used which allow continuous assertion of the memory cell states without interruption during the their refreshing cycles.