• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.1289-1294
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• 2008

Electrostatic discharge(ESD) phenomenon is a serious reliability concern. It causes approximately most of all field failures of IC. To quality the ESD immunity of IC product, there are some test methods and standards developed. ESD events have been classified into 3 models, which are HBM, MM and CDM. All the test methods are designed to evaluate the ESD immunity of IC products. This study provides an overview among ESD test methods on ICs and an efficient ESD stress method. We have estimated on all pin combination about the positive and negative ESD stress. We make out the weakest stress mode. This mode called a worst-case mode. We proposed that positive supply voltage pin and I/O pin combination is efficient because it is a worst-case mode.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.109-113
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• 2005

It has been reported that the failure phenomenon and variation of electrical characteristic due to the effect of electrostatic discharge(ESD) in silicon devices. But we had fess reports about the phenomenon due to the ESD in the compound semiconductors. So there are a lot of difficulty to the phenomenon analysis and to select the protection method of main circuits or the devices. It has not been reported that the relation between the ESD stress and GaN devices, which is remarkable to apply the operation in high temperature and high voltage due to the superior material characteristic. We studied that the characteristic variation of the AlGaN/GaN HEMT current, the leakage current, the transconductance(gm) and the failure phenomenon of device due to the ESD stress. We have applied the ESD stress by transmission line pulse(TLP) method, which is widely used in ESD stress experiments, and observed the variation of the electrical characteristic before and after applying the ESD stress. The on-current trended to increase after applying the ESD stress. The leakage current and transconductance were changed slightly. The failure point of device was mainly located in middle and edge sides of the gate, was considered the increase of temperature due to a leakage current. The GaN devices have poor thermal characteristic due to usage of the sapphire substrate, so it have been shown to easily fail at low voltage compared to the conventional GaAs devices.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.378-384
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• 2013

We have investigated the electrical characteristics of SCR(Silicon Controlled Rectifier)-based ESD power clamp circuit with high holding voltage and dual-directional ESD protection cells for a whole-chip ESD protection. The measurement results indicate that the dimension of n/p-well and p-drift has a great effect on holding voltage (2V-5V). Also A dual-directional ESD protection circuit is designed for I/O ESD protection application. The trigger voltage and the holding voltage are measured to 5V and 3V respectively. In comparison with typical ESD protection schemes for whole-chip ESD protection, this ESD protection device can provide an effective protection for ICs against ESD pulses in the two opposite directions, so this design scheme for whole-chip ESD protection can be discharged in ESD-stress mode (PD, ND, PS, NS) as well as VDD-VSS mode. Finally, a whole-chip ESD protection can be applied to 2.5~3.3V VDD applications. The robustness of the novel ESD protection cells are measured to HBM 8kV and MM 400V.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics A
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• v.31A no.12
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• pp.64-70
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• 1994

In this paper, we inverstigated how a parricular internal inverter circuit, which is located far from the input protection in CMOS DRAM, can be easily damaged by external ESD stress, while the protection circuit remains intact. It is shown in a mega bit DRAM that the internal circuit can be safe from ESD by simply improving the input protection circuit. An inverter, which consists of a relatively small NMOSFET and a very large PMOSFET, is used to speed up DRAMs, and the small NMOSFET is vulnerable to ESD in case that the discharge current beyond the protection flows through the inverter to Vss or Vcc power lines on chip. This internal circuit damage can not be detected by only measuring input leakage currents, but by comparing the standby and on operating current before and after ESD stressing. It was esperimentally proven that the placement of parasitic bipolar transistor between input pad and power supply is very effective for ESD immunity.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.587-595
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• 1998

Transient thermal analysis simulations are carried out using a modeling program to understand the human body model HBM ESD. The devices were simulated a one-dimensional device subjected to ESD stress by solving Poison's equation, the continuity equation, and heat flow equation. A ramp rise with peak ESD voltage during rise time is applied to the device under test and then discharged exponentially through the device. LDD and NMOS structures were studied to evaluate ESD performance, snap back voltages, device heating. Junction heating results in the necessity for increased electron concentration in the space charge region to carry the current by the ESD HBM circuit. The doping profile adihacent to junction determines the amount of charge density and magnitude of the electric field, potential drop, and device heating. Shallow slopes of LDD tend to collect the negative charge and higher potential drops and device heating.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.265-270
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• 2015

In this paper, we proposed a dual-directional SCR (silicon-controlled rectifier) based ESD (electrostatic discharge) protection circuit. In comparison with conventional SCR, this ESD protection circuit can provide an effective protection against ESD pulses in the two opposite directions, so the ESD protection circuit can be discharged in two opposite direction. The proposed circuit has a higher holding voltage characteristic than conventional SCR. These characteristic enable to have latch-up immunity under normal operating conditions as well as superior full chip ESD protection. it was analyzed to figure out electrical characteristics in term of individual design parameters. They are investigated by using the Synopsys TCAD simulator. In the simulation results, it has trigger voltage of 6.5V and holding voltage increased with different design parameters. The holding voltage of the proposed circuit changes from 2.1V to 6.3V and the proposed circuit has symmetrical I-V characteristic for positive and negative ESD pulse.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.272-279
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• 2016

In this paper, a new structure for an advanced high holding voltage silicon controlled rectifier (AHHVSCR) is proposed. The proposed new structure specifically for an AHHVSCR-based electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuit can protect integrated circuits from ESD stress. The new structure involves the insertion of a PMOS into an AHHVSCR so as to prevent a state of latch-up from occurring due to a low holding voltage. We use a TACD simulation to conduct a comparative analysis of three types of circuit - (i) an AHHVSCR-based ESD protection circuit having the proposed new structure (that is, a PMOS inserted into the AHHVSCR), (ii) a standard AHHVSCR-based ESD protection circuit, and (iii) a standard HHVSCR-based ESD protection circuit. A circuit having the proposed new structure is fabricated using $0.18{\mu}m$ Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS technology. The fabricated circuit is also evaluated using Transmission-Line Pulse measurements to confirm its electrical characteristics, and human-body model and machine model tests are used to confirm its robustness. The fabricated circuit has a holding voltage of 18.78 V and a second breakdown current of more than 8 A.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.178-179
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• 2005

ESD(Electrostatic Discharge) 보호에 응용되는 소자는 ESD가 발생했을 때, 빠르게 턴-온되어 외부로부터 EOS(Electric OverStress)를 차단함으로서 집적회로 내부의 코어를 보호해 주어야 한다. 이러한 기능에 충실한 LVTSCR(Low-Voltage Silicon Controlled Rectifier)은 트리거링 전압을 기존의 SCR보다 낮추어 ESD에 대해 민감한 반응을 할 수 있도록 개선한 소자이다. 그러나 트리거링 전압을 낮추면서 래치업 전압 또한 낮아지는 특성이 trade-off 관계로 맞물려 있어, LVTSCR의 단점인 낮은 래치업 전압을 효과적으로 다루는 것이 큰 이슈가 되고 있다. 본 논문에서는 LVTSCR의 ESD 보호에 대한 응용시 발생 가능한 래치업을 차폐하는 회로적 방법을 제시하였다. 제시된 새로운 구조의 차폐회로는 LVTSCR에서 래치업이 발생했을 때, 천이 전류를 감지하여 래치업이 발생되는 소자에 대한 전원을 스스로 차폐시켜 래치업에 대한 안정성을 시뮬레이션으로 검증하였다.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics D
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• v.36D no.5
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• pp.21-28
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• 1999

A new method of making high speed self-aligned ESD (Elevated Source/Drain) MOSFET is proposed. Different from the conventional LDD (Lightly-Doped Drain) structure, the proposed ESD structure needs only one ion implantation step for the source/drain junctions, and makes it possible to modify the depth of the recessed channel by use of dry etching process. This structure alleviates hot-carrier stress by use of removable nitride sidewall spacers. Furthermore, the inverted sidewall spacers are used as a self-aligning mask to solve the self-align problem. Simulation results show that the impact ionization rate ($I_{SUB}/I_{D}$) is reduced and DIBL (Drain Induced Barrier Lowering) characteristics are improved by proper design of the structure parameters such as channel depth and sidewall spacer width. In addition, the use of removable nitride sidewall spacers also enhances hot-carrier characteristics by reducing the peak lateral electric field in the channel.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.196-200
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• 2016

We have developed new electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection devices with, bidirectional flip chip transient voltage suppression. The devices differ in their epitaxial (epi) layers, which were grown by reduced pressure chemical vapor deposition (RPCVD). Their ESD properties were characterized using current-voltage (I-V), capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurement, and ESD analysis, including IEC61000-4-2, surge, and transmission line pulse (TLP) methods. Two BD-FCTVS diodes consisting of either a thick (12 μm) or thin (6 μm), n-Si epi layer showed the same reverse voltage of 8 V, very small reverse current level, and symmetric I-V and C-V curves. The damage found near the corner of the metal pads indicates that the size and shape of the radius governs their failure modes. The BD-FCTVS device made with a thin n- epi layer showed better performance than that made with a thick one in terms of enhancement of the features of ESD robustness, reliability, and protection capability. Therefore, this works confirms that the optimization of device parameters in conjunction with the doping concentration and thickness of epi layers be used to achieve high performance ESD properties.