Analysis of the electrical characteristics of novel ESD protection device with high holding voltage under various temperatures

The paper introduces a silicon controlled rectifier (SCR)-based device with high holding voltage for ESD power clamp. The holding voltage can be increased by extending a p+ cathode to the first n-well and adding second n-well wrapping around n+ cathode. The increase of the holding voltage above the supply voltage enables latch-up immune normal operation. The device is fabricated by 0.35 um BCD (Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS) technology and investigated not only the electrical characteristics, but also temperature dependence of holding voltage/current in a wide temperature range from 300 K to 500 K. In the measurement result, the proposed device has holding voltage of 8 V and second breakdown current of 80 mA/um. At high temperature condition of above 400 K, the holding voltage, holding current and second breakdown current of the proposed device rapidly decrease.