Active ESD shunt with transistor feedback to reduce latchup susceptibility or false triggering

Author

Tong, Paul C F ; Chen, Wensong ; Jiang, Ryan H C ; Hui, John ; Xu, Ping Ping ; Liu, Patty Z Q

Author_Institution

Pericom Semicond. Corp., San Jose, CA, USA

fYear

2004

Firstpage

89

Lastpage

92

Abstract

We present an anomalous latchup failure phenomenon related to the large Nwell resistor associated with the generic RC-triggered, MOSFET-based active clamp circuit for on-chip ESD protection between VCC and VSS buses. A novel active clamp circuit with PMOS feedback technique has been proposed to reduce the IC´s susceptibility to latchup during negative current injection at neighboring I/O pads or false triggering of the RC trigger circuit due to noise on the VCC power line. The effectiveness of this new active clamp circuit is confirmed by our experiment and simulation results.

Keywords

MOS integrated circuits; active networks; circuit feedback; electrostatic discharge; integrated circuit noise; trigger circuits; MOSFET-based active clamp circuit; Nwell resistor; PMOS feedback technique; active ESD shunt; false triggering; generic RC-triggered active clamp circuit; latchup failure phenomenon; latchup susceptibility; negative current injection; on-chip ESD protection; power line noise; transistor feedback; Clamps; Electrostatic discharge; Feedback circuits; Integrated circuit noise; MOSFETs; Negative feedback; Protection; Resistors; Trigger circuits; Variable structure systems;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits, 2004. IPFA 2004. Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on the

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8454-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IPFA.2004.1345551

Filename

1345551