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:
May. 07, 2002
Filed:
Mar. 23, 1999
David P. Braun, Irvine, CA (US);
Conexant Systems, Inc., Newport Beach, CA (US);
Abstract
A functionality selection system that selects the operation of a function within a semiconductor device. The semiconductor device is capable of performing a plurality of functions. The functions are already embedded in the semiconductor device and available for selection. The functionality selection system operates prior to encapsulation of the semiconductor device. The availability of performing the functionality selection just prior to encapsulation provides numerous advantages over conventional functionality selection systems. By performing the selection of the semiconductor device's functionality to just prior to encapsulation, the lag time between a customer's order and a shipment of the semiconductor device is shortened. The lag time can be shortened to only two weeks in contrast to many conventional selection systems that have lag times as long as three months. The invention is also a functionality identification system. A semiconductor device having a selected functionality is input into the functionality identification system, and the bonding arrangement of the semiconductor device is used to identify the semiconductor device. The invention also includes a method for performing the selection of a particular functionality within a semiconductor device. The invention also provides for a security system that couples a specific software to a specific hardware. In this embodiment of the invention, the invention serves as a key that ensures that the specific software is not loaded indiscriminately on just any given hardware, but that software from a specific source or group of sources is operative only with hardware from the specific source or group of sources.