Kang-Woon Lee

An embedded nonvolatile FRAM with electrical fuse repair scheme and one time programming scheme for high performance smart cards

An embedded ferroelectric random access memory (eFRAM) with an electrical fuse (e-fuse) repair scheme, in which the repair information can be electrically programmed, was successfully developed for a high performance smart card. From the viewpoints of security and cost-efficiency, the e-fuse repair scheme with ferroelectric memory cell is the best way to improve the yield of the smart card. We realized a flexible and efficient repair scheme by controlling it with repair signals and the addresses. The successful operation of the e-fuse repair scheme was confirmed and the fixed attempt ratio was over 95%. Additionally, the one time programming cells were embodied by modifying the control scheme of the eFRAM for the smart card application. The cycle time and address access time of the eFRAM for the smart card application were 70ns and 50ns, respectively.