• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.150-154
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• 2019

In the design of semiconductor integrated circuits, ESD is one of the important issues related to product quality improvement and reliability. In particular, as the process progresses and the thickness of the gate oxide film decreases, ESD is recognized as an important problem of integrated circuit design. Many ESD protection circuits have been studied to solve such ESD problems. In addition, the proposed device can modify the existing SCR structure without adding external circuit to effectively protect the gate oxide of the internal circuit by low trigger voltage, and prevent the undesired latch-up phenomenon in the steady state with high holding voltage. In this paper, SCR-based novel ESD(Electro-Static Discharge) device with the high holding voltage has been proposed. The proposed device has the lower triggering voltage without an external trigger circuitry and the high holding voltage to prevent latch-up phenomenon during the normal condition. Using TCAD simulation results, not only the design factors that influence the holding voltage, but also comparison of conventional ESD protection device(ggNMOS, SCR), are explained. The proposed device was fabricated using 0.35um BCD process and was measured electrical characteristic and robustness. In the result, the proposed device has triggering voltage of 13.1V and holding voltage of 11.4V and HBM 5kV, MM 250V ESD robustness.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.7-12
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• 2017

This paper proposed the ESD protection circuit for the high-voltage applications with latch-up immunity and high area efficiency. The proposed circuit has high holding voltage compared to the conventional SCR by inserting the floating regions and applying the segmentation layout. It has the area efficiency is more higher due to the segmentation layout. The proposed circuit has the higher holding voltage of the 21.67V than the 3.39V of the conventional SCR. The electrical characteristics of the proposed circuit was investigated by TCAD simulator, and was proved through the fabrication by using the 0.18 BCD process.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.805-808
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• 2005

In this study, the design of advanced LVDS(Low Voltage Differential Signaling) I/O interface circuit with new structural low triggering ESD(Electro-Static Discharge) protection circuit was investigated. Due to the differential transmission technique and low power consumption at same time. maximum transmission data ratio of designed LVDS transmitter was simulated to 5Gbps, Also, the LIGCSCR(Latch-up Immune Gate Coupled SCR)was designed. It consists of PLVTSCR (P-type Low Voltage Trigger SCR), control NMOS and RC network. The triggering voltage was simulated to 3.6V. And the latch-up characteristics were improved. Finally, we performed the layout high speed I/O interlace circuit with the low triggered ESD protection device in one-chip.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.1156-1161
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• 2020

In this paper, we propose a new ESD protection circuit with improved electrical characteristics through structural changes of the existing one-way SCR. The proposed ESD protection circuit has high holding voltage characteristics due to the inserted N+ floating and P+ floating regions, and thus the latch-up immunity characteristics are improved. In addition, structural change enables ESD discharge in four types of Zapping mode (PD, PS, ND, NS), and has superior area efficiency than unidirectional SCR. In addition, the P+ floating and N+ floating lengths corresponding to the base length of the parasitic bipolar transistor, and the distance between P+ floating and N+ floating were designated as design variables, and the high holding voltage was verified through Synopsys' TCAD Simulator.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.87-93
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• 2009

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. In this study, the proposed device has been simulated using synopsys TCAD simulator for electrical characteristic, temperature characteristic, and ESD robustness. In the simulation result, the proposed device has holding voltage of 3.6V and trigger voltage of 10.5V. And it is confirmed that the device could have holding voltage of above 4V with the size variation of extended p+ cathode and additional n-well.

• Journal of Satellite, Information and Communications
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.1-5
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• 2015

The ESD(electrostatic discharge) protection performance of PPS(PMOS pass structure) embedded N-type silicon controlled rectifier(NSCR_PPS) device with different partial p-well(PPW) structure was discussed for high voltage I/O applications. A conventional NSCR_PPS standard device shows typical SCR-like characteristics with low on-resistance, low snapback holding voltage and low thermal breakdown voltage, which may cause latch-up problem during normal operation. However, our proposed NSCR_PPS devices with modified PPW_PGM(primary gate middle) and optimal CPS(counter pocket source) implant demonstrate the stable ESD protection performance with high latch-up immunity.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.890-894
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• 2020

In this paper, we propose an ESD protection device with improved electrical characteristics through structural changes of LVTSCR, a typical ESD protection device. The proposed ESD protection device has a higher holding voltage than the existing LVTSCR by inserting a long N+ drift region and additional P-Well and N-Well, and improves the latch-up immunity, a chronic disadvantage of a general SCR-based ESD protection device. In addition, the effective base width of parasitic BJTs was set as a design variable, and the electrical characteristics of the proposed ESD protection device were verified through Synopsys' TCAD simulation so that it can be applied to the required application by applying the N-Stack technology.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.119-123
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• 2022

This paper propose a new ESD protection device suitable for 12V class applications by adding a self-biasing structure to an ESD protection device with high holding voltage due to additional parasitic bipolar BJT. To verify the operating principle and electrical characteristics of the proposed device, current density simulation and HBM simulation were performed using Synopsys' TCAD Simulation, and the operation of the additional self-biasing structure was confirmed. As a result of the simulation, it was confirmed that the proposed ESD protection device has a higher level of holding voltage compared to the existing ESD protection device. It is expected to have high area efficiency due to the dual structure and sufficient latch-up immunity in 12V-class applications.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.601-607
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• 2015

A set of novel silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) devices' characteristics have been analyzed and verified under the electrostatic discharge (ESD) stress. A ring-shaped diffusion was added to their anode or cathode in order to improve the holding voltage (Vh) of SCR structure by creating new current discharging path and decreasing the emitter injection efficiency (${\gamma}$) of parasitic Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT). ESD current density distribution imitated by 2-dimensional (2D) TCAD simulation demonstrated that an additional current path exists in the proposed SCR. All the related devices were investigated and characterized based on transmission line pulse (TLP) test system in a standard $0.5-{\mu}m$ 24 V CDMOS process. The proposed SCR devices with ring-shaped anode (RASCR) and ring-shaped cathode (RCSCR) own higher Vh than that of Simple SCR (S_SCR). Especially, the Vh of RCSCR has been raised above 33 V. What's more, their holding current is kept over 800 mA, which makes it possible to design power clamp with SCR structure for on chip ESD protection and keep the protected chip away from latch-up risk.

• Journal of Satellite, Information and Communications
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.63-68
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• 2014

Electrostatic Discharge(ESD) protection performance of PPS(PMOS pass structure) embedded N-type silicon controlled rectifier(NSCR_PPS) device with different partial p-well(PPW) structure was discussed for high voltage I/O applications. A conventional NSCR_PPS standard device shows typical SCR-like characteristics with low on-resistance, low snapback holding voltage and low thermal breakdown voltage, which may cause latch-up problem during normal operation. However, our proposed NSCR_PPS devices with modified PPW demonstrate the stable ESD protection performance with high latch-up immunity.