Advanced Simulation for ESD Protection Elements

Abstract

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) failure is one of the most important causes of reliability problems, therefore the design and optimization of ESD devices have to be done. To achieve very short time to market and reduce the development effort, one tries to make use of the benefit of simulation tools. However, due to the complex physical mechanism of ESD events and the hard mathematic calculation in the snapback region, simulation of the I-V characteristic of ESD protection devices has been proved to be difficult. This chapter aims at providing a systematic way to ESD simulation, including the process simulation, device simulation and circuit level simulation. Process/device simulation offers an effective way to evaluate the performance of ESD protection structures. However, to prevent the injury of ESD, protection circuits are used sometimes. Therefore circuit level simulation is needed.