Patent ID: 6100486
Filing Date: 2000-08-08
Classification: B07C,G01R,H01L

Abstract:
In an integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing process, a method for recovering IC devices from a group of IC devices that has previously been rejected in accordance with a test standard, the IC devices being of the type having a substantially unique ID code, the method comprising:permanently storing a unique ID code for each IC device of the group of IC devices comprising programming each of the IC devices of the group of IC devices to permanently store a unique fuse ID code;developing a relaxed test standard different than the test standard;storing test results that caused each IC device of the group of IC devices to be rejected in connection with the ID codes of each IC device of the group of IC devices that were rejected based upon the test standard;automatically reading the ID code from each IC device of the group of IC devices;accessing the test results stored in connection with each of the automatically read ID codes;comparing the accessed test results for each of the IC devices with the relaxed test standard; andsorting the group of IC devices according to whether their test results pass the relaxed test standard to recover any IC device of the group of IC devices having test results that pass the relaxed test standard.