Innovative low-breakdown voltage antifuses enabled through new thin film

12 July 2006 News

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories (www.sandia.gov) have developed what they say is an inexpensive, reliable and easy-to-manufacture class of dielectric films that have the capability of enabling programmable antifuses on ICs at less cost and using easier-to-manufacture methods.

The new Sandia films enable single-mask level sub 5 V write antifuses that are compatible with leading-edge IC specifications.

Antifuses are nonvolatile, one-time programmable memories fabricated on ICs that are programmed with applied voltage. People who need specially-designed chips that are generally not available can use inexpensive chips made with the Sandia-developed dielectric film and permanently program them after fabrication, according to Sandia. This technology inexpensively enables such activities as post fabrication trimming, ROM programming, on-chip serial number identification, and data and program security. Chips with antifuse devices may also be used in high radiation environments or for long-term storage where flash memory would not be reliable, it says.

"Antifuses have been around a long time," says Paul Smith, who is involved in technology transfer at Sandia. "The new Sandia-developed film - that ultimately is incorporated into computer chips with antifuses - requires lower voltage and less real estate. This makes them more desirable than existing antifuses."

Current antifuse technologies rely on complex stacks of ultra-thin films that are foreign to standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processes. These existing multistack solutions use write voltages significantly greater than 5 V, making existing antifuses incompatible with many leading-edge IC designs. The depositions can also be difficult to control. Sandia's dielectric technology leverages existing fabrication equipment and infrastructure without the need for specialised and dedicated tooling.

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