KR20090009461A - Electrostatic discharge device - Google Patents
Electrostatic discharge device Download PDFInfo
- Publication number
- KR20090009461A KR20090009461A KR1020070072749A KR20070072749A KR20090009461A KR 20090009461 A KR20090009461 A KR 20090009461A KR 1020070072749 A KR1020070072749 A KR 1020070072749A KR 20070072749 A KR20070072749 A KR 20070072749A KR 20090009461 A KR20090009461 A KR 20090009461A
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- South Korea
- Prior art keywords
- electrostatic discharge
- driving voltage
- voltage
- unit
- pad
- Prior art date
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- 230000003068 static effect Effects 0.000 claims abstract description 46
- 230000005611 electricity Effects 0.000 claims abstract description 44
- 239000000758 substrate Substances 0.000 claims description 23
- 238000007599 discharging Methods 0.000 claims description 6
- 238000000034 method Methods 0.000 claims 26
- 238000012790 confirmation Methods 0.000 abstract 1
- 238000010586 diagram Methods 0.000 description 8
- 239000004065 semiconductor Substances 0.000 description 8
- 230000015556 catabolic process Effects 0.000 description 3
- 230000033228 biological regulation Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000007423 decrease Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000003247 decreasing effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000000694 effects Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000005516 engineering process Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000004048 modification Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000012986 modification Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000004088 simulation Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000001052 transient effect Effects 0.000 description 1
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Classifications
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
- H01L—SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES NOT COVERED BY CLASS H10
- H01L27/00—Devices consisting of a plurality of semiconductor or other solid-state components formed in or on a common substrate
- H01L27/02—Devices consisting of a plurality of semiconductor or other solid-state components formed in or on a common substrate including semiconductor components specially adapted for rectifying, oscillating, amplifying or switching and having potential barriers; including integrated passive circuit elements having potential barriers
- H01L27/0203—Particular design considerations for integrated circuits
- H01L27/0248—Particular design considerations for integrated circuits for electrical or thermal protection, e.g. electrostatic discharge [ESD] protection
- H01L27/0251—Particular design considerations for integrated circuits for electrical or thermal protection, e.g. electrostatic discharge [ESD] protection for MOS devices
- H01L27/0266—Particular design considerations for integrated circuits for electrical or thermal protection, e.g. electrostatic discharge [ESD] protection for MOS devices using field effect transistors as protective elements
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
- H03K—PULSE TECHNIQUE
- H03K17/00—Electronic switching or gating, i.e. not by contact-making and –breaking
- H03K17/08—Modifications for protecting switching circuit against overcurrent or overvoltage
- H03K17/081—Modifications for protecting switching circuit against overcurrent or overvoltage without feedback from the output circuit to the control circuit
- H03K17/08104—Modifications for protecting switching circuit against overcurrent or overvoltage without feedback from the output circuit to the control circuit in field-effect transistor switches
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
- H03K—PULSE TECHNIQUE
- H03K19/00—Logic circuits, i.e. having at least two inputs acting on one output; Inverting circuits
- H03K19/003—Modifications for increasing the reliability for protection
- H03K19/00315—Modifications for increasing the reliability for protection in field-effect transistor circuits
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- Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
- Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
- Computer Hardware Design (AREA)
- Power Engineering (AREA)
- Computing Systems (AREA)
- General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
- Mathematical Physics (AREA)
- Condensed Matter Physics & Semiconductors (AREA)
- General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
- Microelectronics & Electronic Packaging (AREA)
- Semiconductor Integrated Circuits (AREA)
Abstract
Description
1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the electrostatic discharge device of the present invention.
2 is a circuit diagram showing a first embodiment of the electrostatic discharge device according to FIG.
3 is a circuit diagram showing a second embodiment of the electrostatic discharge device according to FIG. 2;
4 is a block diagram showing another embodiment of the electrostatic discharge device of the present invention.
5 is a circuit diagram showing a first embodiment of the electrostatic discharge device according to FIG. 5;
6 is a circuit diagram showing a second embodiment of the electrostatic discharge device according to FIG.
7 is a graph measuring the gate voltage according to the present invention.
<Description of Main Parts of Drawing>
10: input and output pad 20: first electrostatic discharge unit
22: bias applying unit 24: driving voltage applying unit
26: electrostatic discharge path 30: second electrostatic discharge portion
40: third electrostatic discharge portion 50: input buffer
60: internal circuit
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to semiconductor memory devices, and more particularly to electrostatic discharge (ESD) devices that protect semiconductor devices from static electricity.
In general, when a semiconductor integrated circuit is in contact with a charged human body or a machine, the static electricity charged in the human body or the machine is discharged into the semiconductor through an input / output pad through an external pin of the integrated circuit, and thus has a large energy transient current wave. Can seriously damage the semiconductor internal circuit. In addition, the static electricity that has been charged inside the semiconductor circuit flows through the machine due to the contact of the machine to damage the external circuit.
Thus, most semiconductor integrated circuits have circuits that discharge static electricity between the input / output pads and the semiconductor internal circuitry to protect the main circuit from such damage.
The electrostatic discharge circuit may be composed of various elements. In particular, when an NMOS transistor is used as an electrostatic discharge element, a grounded-gate NMOS having a structure in which a gate and a source are connected is mainly used.
At this time, the input / output pad is connected to the drain of the NMOS transistor, and when the voltage level of the drain rises due to static electricity, an avalanche breakdown occurs between the drain of the NMOS transistor and the substrate so that an electrostatic current flows to the substrate. do.
When the level of the substrate voltage rises above the source voltage level of the NMOS transistor by the electrostatic current flowing to the substrate, the electrostatic current is discharged from the drain to the source of the NMOS transistor by the BJT characteristic of the NMOS transistor.
At this time, when the turn-on voltage of the NMOS transistor is high, there is a possibility that the transistor gate insulating film inside the input buffer is destroyed. That is, when the turn-on voltage is higher than the breakdown voltage of the gate insulating film of the input buffer, the gate insulating film of the transistor of the input buffer is destroyed before the MOS transistor for discharging static electricity.
In particular, as the recent technology advances, the thickness of the gate insulating film of the transistor constituting the input / output buffer rapidly decreases, and the gate insulating film breakdown voltage is rapidly decreasing. Therefore, there is an urgent need to reduce the turn-on voltage of the electrostatic discharge unit.
An object of the present invention is to provide an electrostatic discharge device having excellent electrostatic discharge performance of electrostatic discharge elements in each path while providing various discharge paths.
Another object of the present invention is to lower the turn-on voltage of an electrostatic discharge device.
An electrostatic discharge device according to an embodiment of the present invention for achieving the above object comprises a first electrostatic discharge unit for discharging the static electricity to the first discharge line when the static electricity in the pad; A second electrostatic discharge unit configured to receive a bias voltage and a driving voltage from the first electrostatic discharge unit to discharge static electricity generated from the pad to a second discharge line; And a third electrostatic discharge unit configured to receive the driving voltage from the first electrostatic discharge unit to discharge static electricity generated from the pad to a second discharge line, and to be connected to an input buffer of an internal circuit.
Preferably, the first discharge line is a power supply voltage line, and the second discharge line is a ground voltage line.
The first electrostatic discharge unit is a bias applying unit for applying a bias voltage to the second electrostatic discharge unit in response to the static electricity generated in the pad; A driving voltage applying unit applying a driving voltage to the second electrostatic discharge unit and a third electrostatic discharge unit in response to the bias voltage; And an electrostatic discharge path configured to discharge the static electricity corresponding to the driving voltage to the first discharge line in response to the driving voltage.
The driving voltage applying unit may be connected to an output terminal of the bias applying unit.
The bias applying unit may include one or more diodes connected between the pad and the driving voltage applying unit.
The bias applying unit may include at least one MOS transistor connected between the pad and the driving voltage applying unit, and a gate of the MOS transistor may be connected to the first discharge line.
The bias applying unit may include a plurality of MOS transistors connected in series between the pad and the driving voltage applying unit, and gates of the plurality of MOS transistors may be commonly connected to the first discharge line.
The driving voltage applying unit includes one or more diodes formed between the bias applying unit and the electrostatic discharge path.
The driving voltage applying unit may include at least one MOS transistor connected between the bias applying unit and the electrostatic discharge path, and the gate of the MOS transistor may be connected to the first discharge line.
The electrostatic discharge path may include one or more diodes connected between the first electrostatic discharge unit and the first discharge line.
The electrostatic discharge path may include at least one MOS transistor connected between the first electrostatic discharge unit and the first discharge line, and the gate of the MOS transistor may be connected to the first discharge line.
The first electrostatic discharge unit may further include a resistor connected between the first discharge line and the electrostatic discharge path.
The second electrostatic discharge unit may include a MOS transistor forming a current path between the pad and the second discharge line in response to the bias voltage and the driving voltage.
The bias voltage may be applied to the substrate of the MOS transistor, and the driving voltage may be applied to the gate of the MOS transistor.
The second electrostatic discharge unit may further include a resistor connected between the gate of the MOS transistor and the second discharge line.
The third electrostatic discharge unit may receive the driving voltage and the bias voltage from the first electrostatic discharge unit to discharge static electricity generated from the pad to the second discharge line.
The first electrostatic discharge unit is a bias applying unit for applying a bias voltage to the second electrostatic discharge unit and the third electrostatic discharge unit in response to the static electricity generated in the pad; A driving voltage applying unit applying a driving voltage to the second electrostatic discharge unit and a third electrostatic discharge unit in response to the bias voltage; And an electrostatic discharge path configured to discharge the static electricity corresponding to the driving voltage to the first discharge line in response to the driving voltage.
The third electrostatic discharge unit may include a MOS transistor forming a current path between the second discharge lines in response to a driving voltage applied from the first electrostatic discharge unit.
Static electricity may be applied to the drain terminal of the MOS transistor from the pad, and the driving voltage may be applied to the gate terminal of the MOS transistor.
The bias voltage may be applied to the substrate of the MOS transistor.
A resistance element may be formed between the drain terminal of the MOS transistor and the pad.
In addition, the electrostatic discharge device according to the present invention includes a diode chain connected to the external input and output pad; A first NMOS transistor having a drain connected simultaneously to the input / output pad and an anode of a diode chain; And a second NMOS transistor whose drain is simultaneously connected to the input / output pad and an anode of the diode chain, wherein a bias voltage is applied to a substrate of the first NMOS transistor from a first node of the diode chain. A driving voltage is applied to a gate of the first NMOS transistor and the gate of the second NMOS transistor from a second node.
The first node of the diode chain may further apply a bias voltage to the substrate of the second NMOS transistor.
Preferably, the voltage of the second node is lower than the voltage of the first node.
A first resistance element may be connected to the anode side of the diode chain.
Electrostatic characterized in that the second resistance element is connected to the gate terminal of the first NMOS transistor
Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an electrostatic discharge device according to the present invention.
As shown, the electrostatic discharge device according to the present invention includes a first
In the first electrostatic discharge unit, a driving voltage is provided to the second electrostatic discharge unit and the third electrostatic discharge unit so that the second electrostatic discharge unit and the third electrostatic discharge unit are turned on at a lower voltage.
A detailed configuration of the electrostatic discharge unit will be described with reference to FIG. 2.
Referring to FIG. 2, the first
The diode chain includes a
The
The second
Here, the gate of the NMOS transistor N1 is connected between the driving
The third
The gate of the NMOS transistor N2 is connected to the node B of the first
Looking at the operation of the electrostatic discharge device, the positive static electricity generated in the
At this time, since the bias is applied to the substrate of the NMOS transistor through the node A, the trigger voltage is lowered. In this embodiment, since node B passes through one or more diodes more than node A, the voltage of node A is approximately 0.7 volts higher than that of node B. In other words, by applying a higher bias voltage to the substrate, the threshold voltage of the NMOS transistor N1 can be lowered, and as a result, the NMOS transistor can be easily turned on and discharge static electricity even with low static electricity. As the NMOS transistor N1 is turned on, the static electricity generated in the
As described above, the static electricity applied through the input /
In addition, since the input / output pad is also connected to the third
At this time, an electrostatic voltage is applied to the drain terminal of the NMOS transistor N2 of the third
Therefore, since the NMOS transistor N2 is turned on and discharged even at lower static electricity, the gate insulating layer of the
As shown in FIG. 3, the first
That is, the
In addition, the
4 is a block diagram of another embodiment of the present invention.
In this embodiment, a bias voltage is also applied to the substrate of the transistor of the third
Although the configurations of the first
FIG. 5 shows a detailed circuit configuration of FIG. 4.
The first
That is, the
The second
According to the present exemplary embodiment, the drain terminal of the third
The difference is that a bias voltage is applied to the substrate of the NMOS transistor N2 through the node A of the first
As described above, by applying a bias voltage to the substrate of the NMOS transistor N2, the turn-on voltage of the transistor N2 may be further lowered. That is, since the NMOS transistor N2 may be turned on faster, the electrostatic discharge performance may be further improved by the
As shown in FIG. 6, the first
7 is a graph simulating the effect of the electrostatic discharge device according to the present invention.
In order to confirm that the turn-on voltage is lowered, a case of using a GGNMOS transistor in which a conventional gate is grounded and applying a driving voltage to the gate through the first
In the graph, V1 measures the gate voltage of the NMOS transistor N2 of the third
V1_GGNMOS measures the gate voltage of the NMOS transistor N3 of the third electrostatic discharge part 4 when the GGNMOS transistor is used as in FIG. 1 according to the prior art, and V2_GGNMOS is the GGNMOS transistor N4 of the input buffer 5. The gate voltage of is measured.
As can be seen from the simulation results, it can be seen that the gate voltage of the
As described above, according to the present invention, the turn-on voltage of the transistor can be reduced without increasing the layout area of the electrostatic discharge device.
In addition, according to the present invention, the transistor gate insulating film of the input buffer can be prevented from being destroyed.
In addition, the present invention can provide an electrostatic discharge device having excellent electrostatic discharge performance by lowering the trigger voltage by applying a bias to the substrate of the transistor.
While the invention has been shown and described with reference to specific embodiments, the invention is not limited thereto, and the invention is not limited to the scope of the invention as defined by the following claims. Those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that modifications and variations can be made.
Claims (28)
Priority Applications (1)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
KR1020070072749A KR20090009461A (en) | 2007-07-20 | 2007-07-20 | Electrostatic discharge device |
Applications Claiming Priority (1)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
KR1020070072749A KR20090009461A (en) | 2007-07-20 | 2007-07-20 | Electrostatic discharge device |
Publications (1)
Publication Number | Publication Date |
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KR20090009461A true KR20090009461A (en) | 2009-01-23 |
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KR1020070072749A KR20090009461A (en) | 2007-07-20 | 2007-07-20 | Electrostatic discharge device |
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Cited By (1)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
KR20200001535A (en) * | 2018-06-26 | 2020-01-06 | 비쉐이-실리코닉스 | Protection circuits with negative gate swing capability |
-
2007
- 2007-07-20 KR KR1020070072749A patent/KR20090009461A/en not_active Application Discontinuation
Cited By (1)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
KR20200001535A (en) * | 2018-06-26 | 2020-01-06 | 비쉐이-실리코닉스 | Protection circuits with negative gate swing capability |
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