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:
Sep. 25, 2001
Filed:
May. 29, 1998
James P. Baukus, Westlake Village, CA (US);
William M. Clark, Jr., Thousand Oaks, CA (US);
Lap-Wai Chow, Monterey Park, CA (US);
Allan R. Kramer, Simi Valley, CA (US);
Hughes Electronics Corporation, El Segundo, CA (US);
Abstract
An integrated circuit is protected from reverse engineering by connecting doped circuit elements of like conductivity with a doped implant in the substrate, rather than with a metallized interconnect. The doped circuit elements and their corresponding implant interconnections can be formed in a common fabrication step with common implant masks, such that they have an integral structure with similar dopant concentrations. The metallization above the substrate surface can be designed to provide further masking of the interconnects, and microbridges can be added to span strips of transistor gate material in the interconnect path.