Silicon-Controlled Rectifier Embedded Diode for 7 nm FinFET Process Electrostatic Discharge Protection

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 May 19;12(10):1743. doi: 10.3390/nano12101743.

Abstract

A new silicon-controlled rectifier embedded diode (SCR-D) for 7 nm bulk FinFET process electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection applications is proposed. The transmission line pulse (TLP) results show that the proposed device has a low turn-on voltage of 1.77 V. Compared with conventional SCR and diode string, the proposed SCR-D has an additional conduction path constituting by two additional inherent diodes, which results in a 1.8-to-2.2-times current surge capability as compared with the simple diode string and conventional SCR with the same size. The results show that the proposed device meets the 7 nm FinFET process ESD design window and has already been applied in actual circuits.

Keywords: ESD; FinFET; diode; silicon-controlled rectifier.