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 ~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 ~5.03 V, making it very suitable for the ESD protections for 1.8 V input/output (I/O) ports in CMOS technologies.