MOSs-String-Triggered Silicon-Controlled Rectifier (MTSCR) ESD Protection Device for 1.8 V Application

In this work, a new low voltage-triggered silicon-controlled rectifier named MTSCR is realized in a 65 nm CMOS process for low voltage-integrated circuits electrostatic discharge (ESD) protections. The MTSCR incorporates an external NMOSs-string, which drives the internal NMOS (INMOS) of MTSCR to turn on, and then the INMOS drive SCR structure to turn on. Compared with the existing low trigger voltage (V-t1) ESD component named diodes-string-triggered SCR (DTSCR), the MTSCR can realize the same low V-t1 characteristic but less area penalty of similar to 44.3% reduction. The results of the transmission line pulsing (TLP) measurement shows that the MTSCR possesses above 2.42 V holding voltage (V-h) and a low V-t1 of similar to 5.03 V, making it very suitable for the ESD protections for 1.8 V input/output (I/O) ports in CMOS technologies.