ESD Protection Challenges

Two main Electro Static Discharge (ESD) challenges lie ahead. Firstly, FinFET technology has only a limited available silicon volume to dissipate the ESD current. Secondly, as CMOS technology downscaling allows Radio Frequency (RF) applications to operate at higher RF frequencies and wider bandwidths, adequate ESD protection needs to be developed without compromising RF performance. This book, therefore, provides an in-depth analysis on ESD protection structures and concepts, implemented in silicon on insulator FinFET technology. Complex dependencies are found for the different ESD performance parameters on both device geometry and process technology. Further, in this book, novel RF-ESD protection solutions are proposed for both narrow- and wideband RF CMOS circuits in most advanced CMOS technologies, with a special emphasis towards CDM protection. This analysis should provide fundamental understanding of the ESD challenges for FinFET technology and RF CMOS circuits, and should be especially useful to everyone working with ESD in the field of product development, support, research or education.

Autorentext

Steven Thijs, PhD: Studied Civil Electrotechnical Engineering at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Senior Researcher at imec, Leuven, Belgium. Guido Groeseneken, PhD: Fellow at imec, Leuven, Belgium. Also professor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.