• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.48 no.12
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• pp.31-36
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• 2011

This paper investigates the ESD robustness of the stacked output driver with a 0.13um CMOS process. To represent an actual I/O system, we implemented stacked output driver circuits with pre-drivers and a rail-based power clamp. We implemented eight kinds of circuits varying pre-driver input connections and stacked driver size. The test circuits are examined with TLP measurements. It is shown that breakdown current and voltage can be increased by connecting the pre-driver input to a power supply and using stacked devices of a similar size. Based on the test results, design guideline is suggested to improve ESD robustness of the stacked output drivers.