| With the development of semiconductor manufacturing process, device feature size is scaled down constantly. ESD (Electro-static Discharge) has become one of the most important reliability issues in ICs (Integrated Circuits). In order to effectively improve the ESD protection ability in deep sub-micron VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) circuits, analysis and design new type of ESD protection devices get more and more important.On the basis of present studies of ESD protection devices, this thesis focuses on a novel structure of ESD protection device based on the static induction thyristor (SITh) in further investigation. The main work of the thesis is divided into two aspects. On the one hand, detailed analysis of the negative resistance characteristics of SITh is presented, especially its blocking and conducting states that satisfy the requirements in ESD events like conventional snapback ESD protection devices. Therefore, SITh can be used as a novel ESD protection device. On the other hand, the characteristics of SITh for ESD protection are obtained using the Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR) type of Transmission Line Pulse (TLP) testing system. The results illustrate that SITh for ESD protection has the following advantages:1) It has a strong ESD stress handing capability (≥3kV), that is, its robustness can reach as high as3kV;2) Its second breakdown current is large enough (2A) to release great ESD current;3) DC leakage current of SITh under TLP stress is very small (1μA), but the existence of the soft failure needs additional attention;4) Compared with other ESD protection devices, SITh can break through the limitations of transitional trigger voltages, whose trigger voltage is dynamically adjustable as well;5) The ESD response time can be controlled in10ns through optimizing device structure of SITh, which can satisfy the requirements of the ESD model. Theoretical analysis and experimental test results demonstrate that SITh has a strong ESD protection ability, and can be used for ESD protection of high power components and strong electrical system. |
