Systems and methods for adjusting threshold voltage
View Patent ↗Systems and methods for adjusting threshold voltage. A threshold voltage of a transistor of an integrated circuit is measured. A bias voltage, which when applied to a body well of the transistor corrects a difference between the threshold voltage and a desired threshold voltage for the transistor, is determined. The bias voltage is encoded into non-volatile storage on the integrated circuit. The non-volatile storage can be digital and/or analog.
1. A method of encoding threshold voltage adjustments for an integrated circuit, said method comprising:
measuring a threshold voltage of a transistor of said integrated circuit;
determining a bias voltage which when applied to a body well of said transistor corrects a difference between said threshold voltage and a desired threshold voltage for said transistor; and
encoding said bias voltage into non-volatile storage on said integrated circuit.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein said transistor is a p channel field effect transistor.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein said transistor is an n channel field effect transistor.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein said non-volatile storage comprises a fuse.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein said non-volatile storage comprises electrically erasable programmable read only memory.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein said encoding stores a digital representation of said bias voltage.
7. The method of claim 6 wherein said digital representation of said bias voltage is accessible by a bias voltage source.
8. The method of claim 6 wherein said digital representation of said bias voltage is accessible by a microprocessor.
9. The method of claim 1 wherein said encoding stores an analog representation of said bias voltage.
10. The method of claim 9 wherein said analog representation of said bias voltage is accessible by a bias voltage source.
11. The method of claim 1 wherein said desired threshold voltage is a nominal process threshold voltage for said integrated circuit.
12. The method of claim 1 wherein said desired threshold voltage is determined based on power consumption characteristics of said integrated circuit at a specific operating frequency.