Patent ID: 7088135

Claim:
A nonvolatile switch, comprising: an input terminal; an output terminal; a selection terminal; a first and a second biasing terminal; a memory element of flash type, having a first conduction region coupled to said first biasing terminal and a second conduction region coupled to said second biasing terminal; a pass transistor, having a first conduction region coupled to said input terminal and a second conduction region coupled to said output terminal; a pair of common-gate regions, having a common floating gate region and a common control gate region, which are capacitively coupled together, said memory element and said pass transistor sharing said common-gate regions and integrated adjacent to each other, and said common control gate region being coupled to said selection terminal; and a body of semiconductor material that accommodates a first and a second active area separated by an insulating region, said common-gate regions extending in a direction transverse to, and on top of, said first and second active areas, said first active area forming said first and second conduction regions of said memory element, and said second active area forming said first and second conduction regions of said pass transistors, wherein the switch is a programmable switch that can pass or block data from the input terminal to the output terminal based on programmable ON/OFF operation of the switch.