Robustness of ESD protection structures against automotive transient disturbances

Predicting if an ESD protection structure is able to handle transient disturbances without being destroyed is very important in order to select the right protection concept for ICs. This paper shows how the energy content of typical automotive transient disturbances can be predicted and how the failure power of an ESD protection structure was derived from measurements and calculations. It shows to what extent a standard ESD protection structure is able to handle ISO 7637 automotive test pulses of much higher energies.