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A high performance RC-INV triggering SCR under 0.25 µm process

Xuebing Su (Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, China)
Yang Wang (Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, China)
Xiangliang Jin (Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China)
Hongjiao Yang (Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, China)
Yuye Zhang (Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, China)
Shuaikang Yang (Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, China)
Bo Yu (Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, China)

Microelectronics International

ISSN: 1356-5362

Article publication date: 13 December 2022

Issue publication date: 2 January 2024

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Abstract

Purpose

As it is known, the electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection design of integrated circuit is very important, among which the silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) is one of the most commonly used ESD protection devices. However, the traditional SCR has the disadvantages of too high trigger voltage, too low holding voltage after the snapback and longer turn-on time. The purpose of this paper is to design a high-performance SCR in accordance with the design window under 0.25 µm process, and provide a new scheme for SCR design to reduce the trigger voltage, improve the holding voltage and reduce the turn-on time.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the traditional SCR, an RC-INV trigger circuit is introduced. Through theoretical analysis, TCAD simulation and tape-out verification, it is shown that RC-INV triggering SCR can reduce the trigger voltage, increase the holding voltage and reduce the turn-on time of the device on the premise of maintaining good robustness.

Findings

The RC-INV triggering SCR has great performance, and the test shows that the transmission line pulse curve with almost no snapback can be obtained. Compared with the traditional SCR, the trigger voltage decreased from 32.39 to 16.24 V, the holding voltage increased from 3.12 to 14.18 V and the turn-on time decreased from 29.6 to 16.6 ns, decreasing by 43.9% the level of human body model reached 18 kV+.

Originality/value

Under 0.25 µm BCD process, this study propose a high-performance RC-INV triggering SCR ESD protection device. The work presented in this paper has a certain guiding significance for the design of SCR ESD protection devices.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61774129 and 61827812), Excellent youth funding of Hunan Provincial Education Department (Grant No. 19B557), Technology Program of Changsha (Grant No. kh2201084) and by Degree & Postgraduate Education Reform Project of Hunan Province (QL20210141).

Citation

Su, X., Wang, Y., Jin, X., Yang, H., Zhang, Y., Yang, S. and Yu, B. (2024), "A high performance RC-INV triggering SCR under 0.25 µm process", Microelectronics International, Vol. 41 No. 1, pp. 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1108/MI-04-2022-0069

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited

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