Kilopass Lowers Manufacturing Cost With ROM Conversion Option

Santa Clara, CA -- July 27, 2009 -- Kilopass Technology, Inc., a leading provider of semiconductor non-volatile memory (NVM) intellectual property (IP) announced today that it is providing a read only memory (ROM) conversion option for its One-Time Programmable Memory (OTP) product lines. ROM-it! will eliminate programming test cost for OTP.

The major tradeoff designers make between using an OTP versus a ROM is programmability versus test cost. An OTP can be programmed at wafer, final test, or in system but requires typically 50us to 2us of program time per bit or byte depending on the technology. For high capacity memory, the test time can be in the seconds potentially. For electrical programmability, the test cost may well justify it. But, when code matures by high volume production, Kilopass has a path to lowering the cost of manufacturing by eliminating the majority of the OTP test cost, programming test time. ROM-it! converts XPM™ OTP to ROM with a 1-layer VIA change for 90nm and below processes or a 2-layer OD and Poly change for 130nm and above.

“We are excited to be able to support our customers in their efforts to reduce manufacturing cost,” said VP of Marketing Linh Hong. “In today’s competitive semiconductor market, with high tooling costs for deep submicron processes, it is increasingly important to maintain flexibility during early product phases and to reduce manufacturing cost for mature, high volume products. Kilopass’ new ROM-it! ™ conversion option provides this flexibility.”

The advantage of ROM-it! to other embedded NVM technologies is it enables conversion from OTP to ROM with no additional area overhead. The antifuse technology Kilopass pioneered supports a ROM conversion without increasing the bitcell area. All the existing products can be converted to ROM without altering the aspect ratio. Customer using XPM can convert their solution today.

"As with our existing OTP-only technology,” said CTO Harry Luan, “the modified bit cell to support conversion to a ROM complies with foundries’ DFM design rules and has the same high quality for manufacturability and reliability, without requiring mask upgrade or special manufacturing control."
Kilopass is accepting designs now for immediate manufacturing. For more information, please contact sales@kilopass.com.

About Kilopass
Kilopass Technology Inc., a fast-growing supplier of embedded NVM intellectual property leverages standard logic CMOS processes to deliver one-time programmable (OTP) structures based on its extra-permanent memory (XPM) technology. Kilopass XPM technology is being used by over 60 companies worldwide in over 30 million semiconductor devices. The XPM memory arrays are used for the storage of firmware, security codes, trim and calibration data and other application critical information. For more information, please visit www.kilopass.com, call (408) 980-8808 or email info@kilopass.com.