ESD in Silicon Integrated Circuits
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ESD in Silicon Integrated Circuits, 2nd Edition Ajith Amerasekera, Charvaka Duvvury Copyright c 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd ISB N s : 0-471-49871-8 (Hardback); 0-470-84605-4 (Electronic) ESD in Silicon Integrated Circuits Second Edition ESD in Silicon Integrated Circuits Second Edition Ajith Amerasekera Charvaka Duvvury Texas Instruments, Inc., USA With Warren Anderson Compaq Computer Corporation, USA Horst Gieser Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM ATIS, Germany Sridhar Ramaswamy Texas Instruments, Inc., USA Copyright c 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Baffins Lane, Chichester, West Sussex PO 19 1UD, England Phone (+44) 1243 779777 e-mail (for orders and customer service enquiries): [email protected] Visit our Home Page on http://www.wileyeurope.com or http://www.wiley.com All Rights Reserved. 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Contents Preface ix 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background 1 1.2 The ESD Problem 3 1.3 Protecting Against ESD 4 1.4 Outline of the Book 4 Bibliography 7 2 ESD Phenomenon 8 2.1 Introduction 8 2.2 Electrostatic Voltage 9 2.3 Discharge 11 2.4 ESD Stress Models 12 Bibliography 15 3 Test Methods 17 3.1 Introduction 17 3.2 Human Body Model (HBM) 18 3.3 Machine Model (MM) 27 3.4 Charged Device Model (CDM) 28 3.5 Socket Device Model (SDM) 40 3.6 Metrology, Calibration, Verification 42 3.7 Transmission Line Pulsing (TLP) 47 3.8 Failure Criteria 58 3.9 Summary 60 Bibliography 61 4 Physics and Operation of ESD Protection Circuit Elements 68 4.1 Introduction 68 4.2 Resistors 68 4.3 Diodes 70 vi CONTENTS 4.4 Transistor Operation 77 4.5 Transistor Operation under ESD Conditions 85 4.6 Electrothermal Effects 95 4.7 SCR Operation 98 4.8 Conclusion 101 Bibliography 102 5 ESD Protection Circuit Design Concepts and Strategy 105 5.1 The Qualities of Good ESD Protection 106 5.2 ESD Protection Design Methods 109 5.3 Selecting an ESD Strategy 123 5.4 Summary 124 Bibliography 124 6 Design and Layout Requirements 126 6.1 Introduction 126 6.2 Thick Field Device 127 6.3 nMOS Transistors (FPDs) 132 6.4 Gate-Coupled nMOS (GCNMOS) 138 6.5 Gate Driven nMOS (GDNMOS) 149 6.6 SCR Protection Device 150 6.7 ESD Protection Design Synthesis 155 6.8 Total Input Protection 164 6.9 ESD Protection Using Diode-Based Devices 172 6.10 Power Supply Clamps 176 6.11 Bipolar and BiCMOS Protection Circuits 179 6.12 Summary 183 Bibliography 184 7 Advanced Protection Design 188 7.1 Introduction 188 7.2 PNP-Driven nMOS (PDNMOS) 188 7.3 Substrate Triggered nMOS (STNMOS) 189 7.4 nMOS Triggered nMOS (NTNMOS) 192 7.5 ESD for Mixed-Voltage I/O 200 7.6 CDM Protection 214 7.7 SOI Technology 215 7.8 High-Voltage Transistors 216 7.9 BiCMOS Protection 218 7.10 RF Designs 219 7.11 General I/O Protection Schemes 220 7.12 Design/Layout Errors 221 7.13 Summary 223 Bibliography 224 CONTENTS vii 8 Failure Modes, Reliability Issues, and Case Studies 228 8.1 Introduction 228 8.2 Failure Mode Analysis 229 8.3 Reliability and Performance Considerations 238 8.4 Advanced CMOS Input Protection 239 8.5 Optimizing the Input Protection Scheme 242 8.6 Designs for Special Applications 249 8.7 Process Effects on Input Protection Design 253 8.8 Total IC Chip Protection 255 8.9 Power Bus Protection 256 8.10 Internal Chip ESD Damage 258 8.11 Stress Dependent ESD Behavior 263 8.12 Failure Mode Case Studies 267 8.13 Summary 271 Bibliography 272 9 Influence of Processing on ESD 282 9.1 Introduction 282 9.2 High Current Behavior 284 9.3 Cross Section of a MOS Transistor 287 9.4 Drain-Source Implant Effects 288 9.5 p-Well Effects 293 9.6 n-Well Effects 294 9.7 Epitaxial Layers and Substrates 295 9.8 Gate Oxides 298 9.9 Silicides 300 9.10 Contacts 304 9.11 Interconnect and Metalization 305 9.12 Gate Length Dependencies 306 9.13 Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) 310 9.14 Bipolar Transistors 312 9.15 Diodes 314 9.16 Resistors 315 9.17 Reliability Trade-Offs 316 9.18 Summary 317 Bibliography 320 10 Device Modeling of High Current Effects 326 10.1 Introduction 326 10.2 The Physics of ESD Damage 327 10.3 Thermal (“Second”) Breakdown 330 10.4 Analytical Models Using the Heat Equation 335 10.5 Electrothermal Device Simulations 339 viii CONTENTS 10.6 Conclusion 344 Bibliography 345 11 Circuit Simulation Basics, Approaches, and Applications 350 11.1 Introduction 350 11.2 Modeling the MOSFET 351 11.3 Modeling Bipolar Junction Transistors 367 11.4 Modeling Diffusion Resistors 371 11.5 Modeling Protection Diodes 375 11.6 Simulation of Protection Circuits 376 11.7 Electrothermal Circuit Simulations 382 11.8 Conclusion 385 Bibliography 389 12 Conclusion 394 12.1 Long-Term Relevance of ESD In ICs 394 12.2 State-of-the-Art for ESD Protection 395 12.3 Current Limitations 396 12.4 Future Issues 398 Bibliography 399 Index 401 Preface In the seven years since the first edition of this book was completed, Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) phenomena in integrated circuits (IC) continues to be important as technologies shrink and the speed and size of the chips increases. The phenom- ena related to ESD events in semiconductor devices take place outside the realm of normal device operation. Hence, the physics governing this behavior are not typ- ically found in general textbooks on semiconductors. Similarly the circuit design issues involve nonstandard approaches that are not covered in general books on electronic design. There has been a large amount of work done in the areas of ESD circuit design and the physics involved, most of which has been published in a number of papers and conference proceedings. This book covers the state- of-the-art in circuit design for ESD prevention as well as the device physics, test methods, and characterization. We also include case studies showing examples of approaches to solving ESD design problems. For the second edition, we have completely revised a number of chapters and brought other chapters up to date with the latest learning. The last seven years have seen many developments in the understanding of ESD phenomenon and the issues related to circuit and transistor design, as well as to modeling and simulation. The book is intended for those working in the field of IC circuit design and tran- sistor device design. In addition, the basics presented in this book should also appeal to graduate students in the field of semiconductor reliability and device/circuit mod- eling. As the problems associated with ESD become significant in the IC industry the demand for graduates with a basic knowledge of ESD phenomena also increases. We hope that this book will help students meet the demands of the IC industry in terms of understanding and approaching ESD problems in semiconductor devices. There are many companies and research institutes that have made it possible to understand and solve the majority of ESD problems in ICs. Some of the companies that have been particularly active in recent years are Texas Instruments, Philips Semiconductors, Lucent, Rockwell, IBM, Motorola, DEC/Compaq, David Sarnoff Labs, and Intel. Research Institutes that have made significant contributions in recent years are Sandia National Labs, Clemson University, Stanford University, the University of California in Berkeley, the University of Western Ontario in Canada, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champain, Twente University in The Netherlands, the Technical University of Munich and the Fraunhofer Institute both in Germany, and IMEC in Belgium. We have many people to thank for their contributions to our personal knowledge and understanding in this area. We would particularly like to thank Robert Rountree, x PREFACE Thomas Polgreen, and Amitava Chatterjee for their contributions both at the circuit design and at the device level. Ping Yang and William Hunter have provided excellent technical guidance during the evolution of the work on ESD, and without their management support this work would not have been undertaken in the first place.