A parallel algorithm for allocation of spare cells on memory chips

The authors propose a parallel algorithm based on the artificial neural network model for solving the spare-allocation problem. The goal is to find a spare allocation which repairs all the faulty cells in the given faulty-cell map. The parallel algorithm requires 2n processing elements for the n×n faulty-cell map problem. The algorithm is verified by many simulation runs. Under the simulation the algorithm finds one of the near-optimum solutions in a nearly constant time with O(n) processors. The simulation results show the consistency of this algorithm. The algorithm can be easily extended for solving rectangular or other shapes of fault map problems