Characteristics of low-leakage deep-trench diode for ESD protection design in 0.18-μm SiGe BiCMOS process

This paper proposes a novel low-leakage BiCMOS deep-trench (DT) diode in a 0.18-μm silicon germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS process. By means of the DT and an n⁺ buried layer in the SiGe BiCMOS process, a parasitic vertical p-n-p bipolar transistor with an open-base configuration is formed in the BiCMOS DT diode. Based on the two-dimensional (2-D) simulation and measured results, the BiCMOS DT diode indeed has the lowest substrate leakage current as compared to the conventional p⁺/n-well diode even at high temperature conditions, which mainly results from the existence of the parasitic open-base bipolar transistor. Considering the applications of the diode string in electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuit designs, the BiCMOS DT diode string also provides a good ESD performance. Owing to the characteristics of the low leakage current and high ESD robustness, it is very convenient for circuit designers to use the BiCMOS DT diode string in their IC designs.