Electrostatic discharge protection circuits in CMOS ICs using the lateral SCR devices: an overview

An overview on the electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuits by using the lateral SCR devices in CMOS ICs is presented. The history of the lateral SCR devices used for on-chip ESD protection is introduced. The practical problem of using the SCR devices in the ESD protection circuits of CMOS ICs is also discussed. Such SCR devices have been found to be accidentally triggered on by the noisy pulses when the ICs are in the normal operating conditions. To overcome this problem, two solutions are proposed to safely apply the SCR devices for effective ESD protection in the CMOS ICs