Verification of Snapback Model by Transient I-V Measurement for Circuit Simulation of ESD Response

Abstract

It is demonstrated that if the compact model of a snapback-type device is calibrated using only pulsed I-V data, it may not correctly reproduce the device response to arbitrary electrostatic discharge (ESD) waveforms. Transient I-V measurements are demonstrated to improve the completeness of the device characterization and model verification. Given an accurately calibrated ESD compact model, circuit simulations may be used to identify device-tester interactions that have been reported to cause unexpected damage during ESD testing. The interaction between a snapback device and an ESD tester can be understood in the context of a relaxation oscillator.Index Terms-Circuit simulation, electrostatic discharge (ESD), metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) model, reliability.

Compact Models for Simulation of On-Chip ESD Protection Networks

“…Meng and Rosenbaum [73] demonstrated that a MOSFET model composed of the PDK model and an ESD wrapper can perform very well in diverse ESD simulations. The model replicates the "snap-up" that occurs if a significant amount of charge remains on the capacitances inside an ESD tester when the protection device turns off; this is shown in Fig.…”

“…The model replicates the "snap-up" that occurs if a significant amount of charge remains on the capacitances inside an ESD tester when the protection device turns off; this is shown in Fig. 23 [73]. The model was used to study a related phenomenon-the retriggering and oscillations that may occur during the tail end of an HBM test and that can damage the DUT.…”

Compact distributed multi-finger MOSFET model for circuit-level ESD simulation

“…Previous works have addressed parameter extraction for the finger model [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. This work focuses on the extraction of the model parameters for the body resistance network.…”

“…Transistors exposed to ESD include those used in I/O circuits and active rail clamp circuits. Many ESDrelevant models for MOSFETs may be found in the open literature, e.g., [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. The majority of these works treat the body resistance as a single element, in effect representing the device as a single-finger MOSFET.…”

“…Each finger of the transistor is represented using the ESD MOSFET model shown in Fig. 3 [6,[17][18][19][20]; the model represented by Fig. 3 will henceforth be referred to as the "finger model".…”