ESD Testing of Aluminum and Copper Vertical Parallel plate (VPP) Capacitor Structures

Vertical parallel plate (VPP) capacitor elements are being used in RF components for RF CMOS and RF BiCMOS technologies. ESD robustness evaluation of the VPP capacitor is very important for RF applications when these elements are used on the input pads of RF receiver networks. In this paper, the first ESD measurements of VPP structures are shown for the first time. The purpose of the work is to evaluate the electrical response of the VPP structure for HBM, and transmission line pulse (TLP) waveforms. In addition, new discoveries are disclosed with aluminum and copper vertical parallel plate capacitor elements.