Advanced tunable protective structure against electrostatic discharge

ESD (electrostatic discharge) protection structures act as a protection of integrated circuits against parasitic electrostatic discharge events. They are located on input or output (I/O) pads. The use of such structures provides better robustness against ESD but also a number of secondary parasitic effects which limit the circuit performance. These effects, for example, limit the bandwidth of processed signals, causes bigger noise or lower gain. Among often used structures belong structures known as SCR (silicon controlled rectifier). Structures like SCR have some disadvantages, therefore they can not be universally usable. This text is dealing with advanced SCR structure, which overcomes disadvantages of conventional SCR protection cell. Physical principle of this new structure allows required features tuning by geometrical adjustments only.