Compact Thermal Failure Model for Devices Subject to Electrostatic Discharge Stresses

A leading cause of device failure under electrostatic discharge stress conditions is thermal failure. This failure occurs as a result of excessive energy dissipation which raises the temperature of the device to a critical breaking level. To predict such a physical failure at circuit level, a compact model compatible with circuit simulators is proposed. The model is derived from the fundamental heat transfer equations and is shown to accurately predict thermal failure for arbitrary electrical stress waveforms.