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:
Mar. 11, 2003
Filed:
Oct. 30, 2000
Thomas W. Kotowski, Noblesville, IN (US);
Delphi Technologies, Inc., Troy, MI (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and method for conditioning polysilicon circuit elements includes a supply source configured to impress a desired voltage or current upon a polysilicon circuit element including at least a polysilicon resistor for a desired signal duration. The desired voltage or current and signal duration are chosen to cause an irreversible decrease in the resistance of the polysilicon circuit element without generating enough heat to re-alloy the resistor contacts or fuse open the resistor. The process of the present invention may be selectively performed on desired ones of a number of polysilicon resistors forming an array or matrix to thereby program the array or matrix with a desired binary code. Alternatively, the process may be used to pre-condition all the resistors in an array or matrix to thereby facilitate subsequent programming thereof via conventional fusing techniques.