No abstract

In this paper, an improved low-voltage-triggered silicon-controlled rectifier (LVTSCR) called an ultra-low-voltage-triggered SCR (ULVTSCR) is proposed and fabricated in a 40-nm CMOS process. By adding an external NMOSs-chain triggering component to the conventional LVTSCR, the proposed ULVTSCR can realize ~2 V lower trigger voltage. Meanwhile, the trigger voltage of the ULVTSCR is adjustable with the number of its incorporated NMOS transistors. Compared with the existing Diodes-chain Triggered SCR (DTSCR) scheme, the NMOSs-chain triggered ULVTSCR possesses a 25% lowered overshoot voltage in the same area consumption, and thus it is more suitable for 2.5 V circuits ESD protections considering the CDM protection applications.

When semiconductor materials are exposed to radiation fields, cascade collision effects may form between the radiation particles in the radiation field and the lattice atoms in the target material, creating irradiation defects that can lead to degradation or failure of the performance of the device. In fact, 6H-SiC is one of the typical materials for third-generation broadband semiconductors and has been widely used in many areas of intense radiation, such as deep space exploration. In this paper, the irradiation cascade effect between irradiated particles of different energies in the radiation and lattice atoms in 6H-SiC target materials is simulated based on the molecular dynamics analysis method, and images of the microscopic trajectory evolution of PKA and SKA are obtained. The recombination rates of the Frenkel pairs were calculated at PKA energies of 1 keV, 2 keV, 5 keV, and 10 keV. The relationship between the number of defects, the spatial distribution pattern of defects, and the clustering of defects in the irradiation cascade effect of 6H-SiC materials with time and the energy of PKA are investigated. The results show that the clusters are dominated by vacant clusters and are mainly distributed near the trajectories of the SKA. The number and size of vacant clusters, the number of Frenkel pairs, and the intensity of cascade collisions of SKAs are positively correlated with the magnitude of the energy of the PKA. The recombination rate of Frenkel pairs is negatively correlated with the magnitude of the energy of PKA.

In this work, a new low voltage-triggered silicon-controlled rectifier named MTSCR is realized in a 65 nm CMOS process for low voltage-integrated circuits electrostatic discharge (ESD) protections. The MTSCR incorporates an external NMOSs-string, which drives the internal NMOS (INMOS) of MTSCR to turn on, and then the INMOS drive SCR structure to turn on. Compared with the existing low trigger voltage (Vt1) ESD component named diodes-string-triggered SCR (DTSCR), the MTSCR can realize the same low Vt1 characteristic but less area penalty of ~44.3% reduction. The results of the transmission line pulsing (TLP) measurement shows that the MTSCR possesses above 2.42 V holding voltage (Vh) and a low Vt1 of ~5.03 V, making it very suitable for the ESD protections for 1.8 V input/output (I/O) ports in CMOS technologies.