Field programmable structured arrays
View Patent ↗A programmable semiconductor device wherein a programmable switch and a configuration element to program the switch are both positioned above a first metal layer.
1. A programmable semiconductor device, comprising:
a programmable switch to couple two nodes; and
a configurable element to program said switch, wherein the configurable element and the switch are positioned above a first metal layer.
2. The device in claim 1 , wherein said programmable switch comprises a first state that couples said two nodes, and a second state that decouples said two nodes.
3. The device of claim 1 , wherein at least one of said two nodes is coupled to one or more nodes of said first metal layer.
4. The device of claim 1 , wherein the configurable element generates a control signal to program said programmable switch.
5. The device in claim 1 , wherein said programmable switch and said configurable element are integrated into a single element.
6. The device of claim 1 , further comprising a second metal layer wherein the programmable switch is positioned below the second metal layer.
7. The device of claim 1 , further comprising a configuration circuit to configure said configurable element.
8. The device of claim 1 , wherein said configurable element comprises a random access memory element or a read only memory element.
9. The device of claim 1 , wherein said configurable element comprises one of fuse link, anti-fuse capacitor, laser-fuse, SRAM cell, DRAM cell, metal optional link, EPROM cell, EEPROM cell, flash cell, ferro-electric element, photo-electric element, optical element, electro-chemical element, electrolytic element, Carbon nano-tube, electro-mechanical element, electro-magnetic element and magnetic element.
10. The device of claim 1 , wherein said switch and said configurable element are located in a single plane.
11. The device of claim 1 , wherein said switch and said configurable element are located in different planes.
12. The device of claim 6 , wherein at least one of said two nodes is coupled to one or more nodes of said second metal layer.
13. The device of claim 1 , wherein said programmable switch comprises a thin film transistor.
14. A programmable semiconductor device, comprising:
a plurality of programmable switches, each switch coupling two nodes; and
a plurality of configurable elements, each element to program one or more of said switches, wherein the configurable elements and the switches are positioned above a first metal layer.
15. The device of claim 14 , further comprising a configuration circuit comprised of said configurable elements.
16. The device of claim 14 , wherein the configurable elements further comprises a random access memory (RAM) element.
17. The device of claim 16 , further comprising a field programmable device wherein the user can program the configurable RAM elements to a user specification.
18. The device of claim 14 , wherein the configurable elements further comprises a read only memory (ROM) element.
19. The device of claim 18 , further comprising a mask programmable device wherein the user can program one or more fabrication masks to program the ROM elements to a user specification.