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Title: US7619938: Repairing advanced-memory buffer (AMB) with redundant memory buffer for repairing DRAM on a fully-buffered memory-module
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Country: US United States of America

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15 pages

 
Inventor: Co, Ramon S.; Trabuco Canyon, CA, United States of America
Sun, David; Irvine, CA, United States of America

Assignee: Kingston Technology Corp., Fountain Valley, CA, United States of America
other patents from KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY COMPANY (741845) (approx. 14)
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Published / Filed: 2009-11-17 / 2008-11-21

Application Number: US2008000275957

IPC Code: Advanced: G11C 29/00;
Core: more...

ECLA Code: G11C29/00R12;

U.S. Class: 365/201; 365/230.08; 365/185.22;

Field of Search: 365/201,230.08,185.22,189.05,191,198,51,63,189.03,207

Priority Number:
2008-11-21  US2008000275957
2006-07-24  US2006000309297
2008-03-21  US2008000053261

Abstract:     A repairing fully-buffered memory module can have memory chips with some defects such as single-bit errors. A repair controller is added to the Advanced Memory Buffer (AMB) on the memory module. The AMB fully buffers memory requests that are sent as serial packets over southbound lanes from a host. Memory-access addresses are extracted from the serial packets by the AMB. The repair controller compares the memory-access addresses to repair addresses and diverts access from defective memory chips to a spare memory for the repair addresses. The repair addresses can be located during testing of the memory module and programmed into a repair address buffer on the AMB. The repair addresses could be first programmed into a serial-presence-detect electrically-erasable programmable read-only memory (SPD-EEPROM) on the memory module, and then copied to the repair address buffer on the AMB during power-up.

Attorney, Agent or Firm: Auvinen, Stuart T. ; g Patent LLC ;

Primary / Asst. Examiners: Nguyen, Dang T;

INPADOC Legal Status: None          Buy Now: Family Legal Status Report

       
Related Applications:
Application Number Filed Patent Pub. Date  Title
US2006000309297 2006-07-24    2008-11-21  Fully-buffered memory-module with redundant memory buffer in serializing advanced-memory buffer (AMB) for repairing DRAM
US2008000053261 2008-03-21    2009-01-06  Repairing Advanced-Memory Buffer (AMB) with redundant memory buffer for repairing DRAM on a fully-buffered memory-module


       
Parent Case: RELATED APPLICATION
    This is a divisional of U.S. Ser. No. 12/053,261, filed Mar. 21, 2008, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,474,576, which is a divisional of U.S. Ser. No. 11/309,297, filed Jul. 24, 2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,379,361.

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First Claim:
Show all 6 claims
    1. A method for testing and repairing memory modules comprising:

pre-screening memory chips using limited test patterns that test individual memory chips before the memory chips are soldered to a substrate, wherein memory chips passing the limited test patterns are sorted as pre-screened memory chips;

wherein the limited test patterns allow at least some single-bit errors in the memory chips to go undetected by pre-screening, wherein the pre-screened memory chips comprise at least some defective memory chips having single-bit errors undetected by the limited test patterns;

soldering pre-screened memory chips to memory module substrates;

soldering repairing Advanced Memory Buffers (AMB) to the memory module substrates to generate assembled memory modules;

wherein the repairing AMB comprises a repair controller and a repair address buffer;

testing the assembled memory modules by sending packets with commands over serial lines to the repairing AMB and receiving packets with data read from the pre-screened memory chips soldered to the memory module substrates or a status of multiple reads of data from the pre-screened memory chips soldered to the memory module substrates;

the repairing AMB decoding the packets received over the serial lines and writing and reading data to and from the pre-screened memory chips soldered to the memory module substrates in response to the commands in the packets;

sorting assembled memory modules that pass testing as good memory modules;

sorting assembled memory modules that fail testing as failed memory modules;

locating failed memory locations in the failed memory modules;

writing repair addresses of the failed memory locations to the repair address buffer in the repairing AMB; and

re-testing the failed memory modules at the failed memory locations, the repair controller re-directing data accesses from a failed memory chip to a spare repair memory for the failed memory locations in the repair address buffer;

whereby failed memory modules are repaired by the spare repair memory for the failed memory locations written into the repair address buffer.



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U.S. References: Go to Result Set: All U.S. references   |  No patents reference this one   |   Backward references (2)   |   Citation Link

Buy
PDF
Patent  Pub.Date  Inventor Assignee   Title
Buy PDF- 30pp US20070058471A1  2007-03 Rajan et al.   Methods and apparatus of stacking DRAMs
Buy PDF- 19pp US20070121389A1  2007-05 Wu et al.   MEMORY INTERFACE TO BRIDGE MEMORY BUSES
       
Foreign References: None

Continuity Data:
Application Number Filed Notes

US2008000275957 2008-11-21  is a related to the prior publication
     US20090073788A1 issued 2009-03-19  Repairing Advanced-Memory Buffer (AMB) with Redundant Memory Buffer for Repairing DRAM on a Fully-Buffered Memory-Module

11309297   is a division of
US2008000053261  2008-03-21
     US7474576 issued 2009-01-06   Repairing Advanced-Memory Buffer (AMB) with redundant memory buffer for repairing DRAM on a fully-buffered memory-module

12275957   is a division of
US2006000309297  2006-07-24
     US7379361 issued 2008-05-27 2008-11-21  Fully-buffered memory-module with redundant memory buffer in serializing advanced-memory buffer (AMB) for repairing DRAM


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