ESD Protection Design for Mixed-Voltage I/O Interfaces -- Overview

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection design for mixed-voltage I/O interfaces has been one of the key challenges of system-on-a-chip (SOC) implementation in nanoscale CMOS processes. This paper presents an overview on the design concept and circuit implementations of the ESD protection designs for mixed-voltage I/O interfaces without using the additional thick gate-oxide process. The ESD design constraints in mixed-voltage I/O interfaces, the classification, and analysis of ESD protection designs for mixed-voltage I/O interfaces are presented and discussed.