Apparatus and method for reducing test resources in testing drams
An apparatus and a method are disclosed for reducing the pin driver count required for testing computer memory devices, specifically Rambus DRAM, while a die is on a semiconductor wafer. By reducing the pin count, more DRAMs can be tested at the same time, thereby reducing test cost and time. One preferred embodiment utilizes a trailing edge of a precharge clock to select a new active bank address, so that the address line required to select a new active address does not have to be accessed at the same time as the row lines.
This present application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/853,573, filed on May 25, 2004, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/653,112, filed on Aug. 31, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,854,079, which is a continuation-in-part application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/454,808, filed on Dec. 3, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,530,045, issued on Mar. 4, 2003, each of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to semiconductor wafer testing and more particularly to an apparatus and method for reducing the pin count necessary to test Rambus dynamic random access memory (RDRAM).
2. Description of the Related Art
Rambus DRAM (RDRAM) is a general-purpose, high-performance, packet-oriented dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) device suitable for use in a broad range of applications, including computer memory, graphics, video, and other applications.
The control logic block 19 in
Address information 16 is passed to the RDRAM device 10 from the CPU 11 via eight RQ pins 36 as illustrated in
Semiconductor chips, such as an RDRAM device 10, contain circuit elements formed in the semiconductor layers which make up the integrated circuits.
In the manufacturing process, a large number of semiconductor chips, each having a predetermined circuit pattern, are formed on a semiconductor wafer 48 such as that shown in
As set forth above, the prior art method of wafer testing RDRAM chips requires 34 pins 52 to test each RDRAM device 10, of which 18 pins are address and data pins. Following this method, the first operation in selecting the address on the RDRAM core entails precharging the bank 22. Precharging is necessary because adjacent banks 22 share the same sense amps 24 and cannot, therefore be simultaneously activated. Precharging a particular bank 22 deactivates the particular bank and prepares that bank 22 and the sense amps 24 for subsequent activation. For example, when the row 28 in the particular bank 22 is activated, the two adjacent sense amps 24 are connected to or associated with that bank 22, and therefore are not available for use by the two adjacent banks. Precharging the bank 22 also automatically causes the two adjacent banks to be precharged, thereby ensuring that adjacent banks are not activated at the same time.
Selecting one of the 32 banks 22 to precharge requires five address bits to specify the bank address. These address bits are provided in a first control signal. The next operation in selecting an address is activating a row 28 in a selected bank using a second control signal. This operation requires nine address bits to select one of the 512 rows 28, and five address bits to select one of the 32 banks 22, for a total of 14 address bits. The next operation reads a column 30 in an open bank using a third control signal. This operation requires five bank bits. This operation also requires six column bits to select one of the 64 columns 30.
Reducing the number of address bits required to specify the address location to be tested reduces the number of pin connection 52 required on the wafer probe 50 to test each individual RDRAM device 10. Reducing the required number of pin connection 52 therefore allows more devices 10 to be tested at the same time, thus permitting an important reduction in production time and chip costs. As chip sizes continue to decrease, there is a corresponding increase in the number of chips on each semiconductor wafer to be tested. Therefore, the ability to test an increased number of devices at the same time grows in importance.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe invention comprises a method of testing computer memory devices, such as Rambus DRAM. The method requires fewer pin connections to test each chip on a semiconductor wafer than previously known methods. The test is performed on a semiconductor wafer using a wafer probe. The number of pins required is reduced by using a trailing edge of a precharge clock to latch the bank address, thus eliminating the need to perform this function on a later step. In combination with such use of the precharge clock's trailing edge, the number of pins required is further reduced by dividing the chip to be tested into a plurality of array cores and compressing the output data so that only one data pin per array core is required. By reducing the pin count, more DRAMs can be tested at the same time, thus reducing the overall test cost and time for testing a complete wafer.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The RDRAM in accordance with the invention has two modes of operation: (1) a high speed packet mode for normal operation; and (2) a low speed asynchronous mode for testing, which bypasses the packetizing hardware, often called “design for test” circuits or DFT. This second mode, shown as a block diagram in
As shown in
The DFT control logic 58 receives a number of signals from the wafer probe 50, including, TestBSENSE, TestPRECH, TestWRITE, TestCOLLAT, TestCLK_R/W, SIO0, SIO1, CMD, SCK and Burn PRECH_EN. The Data Compression/Expansion Logic 59 compresses data so that only four data pins are required, as will be discussed below.
The pins required for the DFT mode of operation are a subset of the pins used in the normal mode of operation. Many of the functions of the normal mode pins are redefined (as discussed below) for the DFT mode. The mapping of the normal mode pins to the DFT mode functions is illustrated below in Table 1.
To test a specific location in the core block 18 of the RDRAM device 10, the location must be referenced by its bank address, row address, and column address. In the normal configuration of a 144 Mbit RDRAM device as illustrated in
In a further embodiment, a 288 Mbit RDRAM device can be tested according to the invention as well. In the normal configuration of a 288 Mbit RDRAM device, the RDRAM core block 18 is internally configured as 32 banks 22. Each bank 22 is organized as 512 rows 28 by 128 columns 30 by 144 bits 32. Selecting the bank address of one of the 32 banks requires five address bits, selecting a row address of one of the 512 rows in a bank requires nine address bits, and selecting a column address of one of the 128 columns in a bank requires seven address bits. In accordance with the present invention, the 288 Mbit RDRAM device can be wafer tested using either DQ compression or DQ compression and 2× row compression.
In DQ compression, the RDRAM device 10 is divided into four quadrants, 60A, 60B, 60C, and 60D, as illustrated in
In one embodiment of the invention using DQ compression and 2× row compression, the 2× row compression further reduces the number of bank address bits required. In particular, the data from corresponding rows in two alternating banks (e.g., bank n with bank n+2 and bank n+16 with bank n+18) are combined as shown in
The data from the two rows of the alternating banks are transferred (either written to the memory or read from the memory) one byte at a time, as in the normal mode. However, because only one data pin is available for each quadrant 60A, 60B, 60C, and 60D, the nine bits of data from each of the two rows (18 bits of data in all) in each quadrant are combined into a respective single bit (i.e., DQ0, DQ1, DQ2, or DQ3). Thus, for each quadrant the data from a column in the two rows are output as a sequence of eight single data bits.
The compression of the data bits is performed by the data compression/expansion logic 59. Each quadrant 60A, 60B, 60C, and 60D can have an associated data compression/expansion logic 59A, 59B, 59C, and 59D as illustrated in
In one embodiment for testing a 288 Mbit RDRAM device, the result of the DQ compression and the 2× row compression is that the array cores 61A, 61B, 61C and 61D are configured as 8 banks by 512 rows by 128 columns by eight four-bit bytes. Therefore, only three bank select bits, nine row address bits, and seven column address bits are required to identify a particular location in the array core. This results in the ability to test each RDRAM device 10 using only nine pins on the wafer probe 50 for defining a specific address location. When the row is activated, nine row address bits identify one of the 512 rows. When a column in an open bank is read, the seven column bits identify the column in the bank to be written to or read from.
In the write and read cycles depicted in
On the falling edge of TestPRECH 62, the bank corresponding to the bank address on the address pins 64 is latched. This latched bank address represents the bank that will be activated the next time TestBSENSE is presented. Multiple banks can be active at any one time. That is, banks previously activated and not subsequently deactivated by precharging remain active in addition to the newly activated bank. Precharging banks and latching banks are accomplished using different edges of the same TestPRECH signal 62. Thus, the present invention eliminates the need to provide separate control signals for the precharge function and the latching function.
Next, a row address is selected using address pins and a row sense clock, TestBSENSE 66. TestBSENSE 66 causes the selected row of the latched (i.e., active) bank to be sensed. The row address to be sensed is the address present on the address pins 64, 68 and 70 at the falling edge of TestBSENSE 66. Because there are 512 rows, nine address pins are required to select the row to be tested. Because the bank was latched using the other edge of the TestPRECH 62, it is not required to select a bank in this operation. Thus, unlike other known methods, the bank select bits do not have to be applied at this time and only the nine address bits need to be applied.
Data are then either read from or written to the column in accordance with the address present on the address pins at the rising edge of a column latch clock, TestCOLLAT 72. The row address of the bank to be opened is presented on the falling edge of TestBSENSE 66. The address of the column to be accessed is presented on the rising edge of TestCOLLAT 72. In one embodiment of the invention, if a new bank is to be opened, then the address of that bank must be the same as the bank of the column to be accessed. As a result, nine address bits are sufficient to provide the necessary address bits to identify any location in the array core.
In a further embodiment, the bank must be one of the banks that was active when TestBSENSE 66 was applied. A TestWrite clock 74 determines whether the operation performed at TestCOLLAT 72 time is a read or a write function. If TestWrite=1 at the rising edge of TestCOLLAT 72, then the data present in a write buffer are written to the RDRAM core. If TestWrite=0 at the rising edge of TestCOLLAT 72, then the data are read from the RDRAM core to a read buffer.
If a fault is indicated, it is not necessary to determine which bit failed, it is sufficient to localize the fault to a row. The tester has the capability to reconfigure the chip so that a spare row is used to replace the row with the fault. The technology for such reconfiguration is well known in the field.
Note that by reducing the required address bits to three and by using both edges of the TestPRECH control signal, the maximum number of address bits required is nine, which with the addition of the four data bits, totals thirteen. This is significantly fewer than the eighteen data and address bits used in other known test methods.
Although specific implementations and operation of the invention have been described above with reference to specific embodiments, the invention may be embodied in other forms without departing from the spirit or central characteristics of the invention. The described embodiments are to be considered in all respects only as illustrative and not restrictive. The scope of the invention is indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description. All changes which come within the meaning of equivalency of the claims are to be embraced within their scope.
Claims
1. (canceled)
2. A wafer probe for testing a memory device, the wafer probe comprising:
- a plurality of conductive pins having a control pin configured to output to at least one memory device a control signal having a precharge signal defined by a first portion of the control signal and a latch signal defined by a second portion of the control signal.
3. The wafer probe of claim 2, wherein the first portion of the control signal is a leading edge of the control signal.
4. The wafer probe of claim 3, wherein the second portion of the control signal is a trailing edge of the control signal.
5. The wafer probe of claim 2, wherein the at least one memory device comprises a dynamic random access memory (DRAM).
6. The wafer probe of claim 2, wherein the plurality of conductive pins is configured to positionally align with bonding pads of at least three memory devices to be tested.
7. The wafer probe of claim 2, further comprising compare circuitry configured to compare data read from the at least one memory device with test data in order to test the integrity of the at least one memory device.
8. Control circuitry for use with a wafer probe in testing a computer memory device, the control circuitry comprising:
- a first input configured to receive from a control pin of a wafer probe a control signal having a precharge signal defined by a first portion of the control signal and a latch signal defined by a second portion of the control signal.
9. The control circuitry of claim 8, further comprising a compression module configured to receive, from the wafer probe, data to be written to multiple locations on a computer memory device.
10. The control circuitry of claim 9, wherein the compression module is configured to replicate a single data bit to the multiple memory locations during a write operation.
11. The control circuitry of claim 10, wherein the compression module is configured to output a failure signal when data bits read from the multiple memory locations have different values.
12. The control circuitry of claim 8, further comprising a second input configured to receive from the wafer probe a testing signal for indicating whether a testing operation by the wafer probe is a read operation or a write operation.
13. The control circuitry of claim 12, further comprising a third input configured to receive from the wafer probe a bank address, a row address and a column address for activating a memory location.
14. A device for testing a computer memory device, the testing device comprising;
- clock circuitry configured to output a control signal having a precharge signal defined by a first portion of the control signal and a latch signal defined by a second portion of the control signal; and
- a plurality of conductive pins, the plurality of conductive pins having a control pin coupled to the clock circuitry and configured to output the control signal to at least one memory device.
15. The testing device of claim 14, wherein the plurality of conductive pins comprises one hundred pins.
16. The testing device of claim 14, further comprising function circuitry configured to output a second signal for selecting whether a testing function by the testing device is a read testing function or a write testing function.
17. The testing device of claim 14, wherein the plurality of conductive pins is configured to concurrently align with bonding pads of at least three memory devices.
18. The testing device of claim 17, further comprising read circuitry configured to read data from each of the at least three memory devices.
19. The testing device of claim 17, wherein the plurality of conductive pins comprises at most nine address pins for each of the at least three memory devices, wherein the address pins are configured to output address bits to each of the at least three memory devices.
20. The testing device of claim 17, further comprising compare circuitry configured to compare data read from each of the at least three memory devices with test data in order to test the integrity of each of the at least three memory devices.
21. The testing device of claim 14, wherein the first portion of the control signal is a leading edge of the control signal and the second portion of the control signal is a trailing edge of the control signal.
Type: Application
Filed: Jun 2, 2006
Publication Date: Jul 19, 2007
Inventors: Chris Cooper (Boise, ID), Siang Giam (Singapore), Jerry McBride (Boise, ID), Scott Gatzemeier (Boise, ID), Scott Ayres (Meridian, ID), David Brown (Allen, TX)
Application Number: 11/445,944
International Classification: G01R 31/28 (20060101);