The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology (한국정보전자통신기술학회논문지)

Korea Information Electronic Communication Technology (한국정보전자통신기술학회)
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Design of a Cell Verification Module for Large-density EEPROM Memories

대용량 EEPROM 메모리 셀 검증용 모듈 회로 설계

  • Received : 2017.04.01
  • Accepted : 2017.04.14
  • Published : 2017.04.30
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Abstract

There is a problem of long erase and program times in testing large-density memories. Also, there is a need of testing the VT voltages of EEPROM cells at each step during the reliability test. In this paper, a cell verification module is designed for a 512kb EEPROM and a CG (control gate) driver is proposed for measuring the VT voltages of a split gate EEPROM having negative erase VT voltages. In the proposed cell verification module, asymmetric isolated HV (high-voltage) NMOS devices are used to apply negative voltages of -3V to 0V in measuring erase VT voltages. Since erasing and programming can be done in units of even pages, odd pages, or a chip in the test time reduction mode, test time can be reduced to 2ms in testing the chip from 4ms in testing the even and the odd pages.

대용량 EEPROM 메모리를 테스트하는 경우 erase time과 program time이 많이 걸리는 문제가 있다. 또한 신뢰성 테스트를 진행하면서 각 스텝마다 EEPROM 셀의 문턱전압 VT를 테스트할 필요가 있다. 본 논문에서는 512kb EEPROM 셀 검증용 모듈 회로를 설계하였으며, negative VTE를 갖는 split gate EEPROM의 VT 측정을 위한 CG(Control Gate) 구동회로를 제안하였다. 제안된 CG 구동회로는 erase VT를 측정하기 위해 -3V~0V의 negative 전압이 인가될 수 있도록 asymmetric isolated HV (High-Voltage) NMOS 소자를 사용하였다. 그리고 test time reduction 모드에서는 even page, odd page, chip 단위로 erase나 program 수행이 가능하도록 회로를 설계하므로 512Kb EEPROM 전체 메모리를 erase하거나 program할 때 시간을 even page와 odd page를 이용하는 경우는 4ms, chip 전체로 하는 경우는 2ms로 테스트 시간을 줄일 수 있었다.

Keywords

References

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