A Flash technology programmable non-volatile switch

A modified Flash-EEPROM device is presented. This device operates as a non-volatile programmable pass transistor. Program and erase operations are performed on a Flash-EEPROM cell coupled to a pass-transistor. Written and erased states of the flash cell correspond to the open and close states of the pass-transistor respectively. The Flash-Programmable Pass Transistor (FPT) was developed for multi-context programmable logic, and it was realized in a technology for embedded FLASH-EEPROM NOR memory. No additional process steps are required. This novel device has the same program and erasing behavior as the standard FLASH-EEPROM cell, measurements are reported for a 0.18mum technology implementation.