Analysis of a Novel Electrically Programmable Active Fuse for Advanced CMOS SOI One-Time Programmable Memory Applications

An analysis of a novel electrically programmable element called an "active fuse" is presented. The device was manufactured in a 65nm CMOS SOI technology. The active fuse is implemented in the SOI silicon film and thus, unlike conventional polysilicon (poly) fuses, remains CMOS compatible with future gate stack materials. The authors show that an active fuse has electrical properties very similar to established electrically programmable poly fuses. Therefore, active fuses can be used as a drop-in replacement for poly fuses, with only minor changes to the layout of existing poly fuse based onetime programmable circuit blocks. Programming yield and extended bake stress reliability experiments show that the active fuse can be programmed very fast within 1mus, resulting in a very stable high resistance state. Using a statistical model, the short programming time is projected to result in near ideal programming yield of active fuse circuit macros. This novel element is therefore fully suitable for reliable one-time programmable (OTP) memory array applications that require high program yield and very good data retention properties