The impact of technology scaling on ESD robustness and protection circuit design

The trends in ESD robustness as a function of technology scaling, for feature sizes down to 0.25 μm, have been experimentally determined using single finger nMOS transistors and full ESD protection circuits. It is shown that as feature sizes are reduced, good ESD performance can be obtained provided the negative effects of the shallower junctions are offset by the positive effects of the reduction in the effective channel lengths. Hence, processes and protection circuits with feature sizes as small as 0.25 μm can be developed without degrading ESD robustness