Patent 7248529 was granted and assigned to Yamaha (yacht) on July, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A semiconductor device has: a fuse having one end applied with a first voltage, and a MOS transistor having source, gate and drain and a connection point between the other end of the fuse and one of the source and drain, a second voltage lower than the first voltage applied to the other of the source and drain, wherein: the first and second voltages, characteristics of the MOS transistor and a resistance of the fuse are selected so that the fuse can be broken down when a predetermined program voltage is applied to the gate; and the resistance of the fuse is set to such a value as a voltage difference between a voltage at the connection point and the second voltage is lower than a drain voltage of the MOS transistor at which a drain current starts saturating, when the program voltage is applied to the gate.