Title :
Novel electrostatic discharge protection structure for a monolithic gas sensor systems-on-a-chip
Author :
Salcedo, J.A. ; Liou, J.J. ; Afridi, M.Y. ; Hefner, A.R.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Central Florida Univ., Orlando, FL, USA
Abstract :
A new on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection scheme is demonstrated for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based embedded sensor (ES) system-on-a-chip (SoC). The ESD protection scheme includes ground-referenced protection cells implemented with novel multifinger thyristor-type devices for (1) input/output (I/O) protection; (2) power supply clamp; (3) protection at the internal sensor electrodes. The I-V characteristics of the thyristor-type protection cells are adjusted to provide an optimum ESD protection per unit area. Transmission line pulsing (TLP) measurements and ESD testing show superb high conductance on-state I-V characteristics with no latch-up problem when thyristor-type devices are subjected to an ESD event, while very low leakage current is obtained at the SoC operating voltage.
Keywords :
CMOS integrated circuits; electrostatic discharge; gas sensors; integrated circuit design; intelligent sensors; microsensors; surge protection; system-on-chip; thyristor circuits; thyristors; CMOS technology; ESD protection design; I/O protection; MEMS; SoC design methodology; electrostatic discharge protection structure; embedded sensor; ground-referenced protection cells; input/output protection; leakage current; microelectromechanical systems; monolithic gas sensor; multifinger thyristor-type devices; power supply clamp; sensor electrode protection; system-on-chip; transmission line pulsing; Clamps; Electrodes; Electrostatic discharge; Gas detectors; Microelectromechanical systems; Power supplies; Power system protection; Sensor phenomena and characterization; Sensor systems; System-on-a-chip;
Conference_Titel :
Circuits and Systems, 2005. ISCAS 2005. IEEE International Symposium on
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-8834-8
DOI :
10.1109/ISCAS.2005.1464613
