Patent · US Expired

Method and system for accelerated detection of weak bits in an SRAM memory device

US7298659B1 · kind B1 · utility

7Cited by
15References
45Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJun 7, 2005
Grant dateNov 20, 2007
Priority date
Expiry dateNov 9, 2025

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG11C2029/1202
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and system for testing the individual memory cells of a volatile memory cell array (e.g., SRAM) for data retention faults are described. In one embodiment of the invention, adjacent memory cells connected by a pair of common bit-lines are written with opposite, or complementary, data, for example, logical “0” and logical “1”. Next, the two memory cells are subjected to a stress condition by pre-charging the common bit-lines connecting the two adjacent memory cells, and then simultaneously asserting the word-line of each memory cell. Finally, the data in each cell is read and compared with the data written to the cell prior to generating the stress condition.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.