Numerical study of a gg-nMOS protection transistor under ionizing radiation and electrostatic discharge

This paper presents the main numerical results obtained on a grounded gate nMOS transistor (gg-nMOST) submitted to ionizing radiation and electrostatic discharge (ESD). The nMOS transistor is defined by its channel length L = 1.8 /spl mu/m and oxide thickness T/sub ox/ = 40 nm. Thus, it's of interest to simulate ionizing radiation effects through /spl Delta/N/sub ot/ and /spl Delta/N/sub it/ and electrical stress by an average current slope (ACS = 10/sup 6/ A/s). The combined effects are used to characterize the behavior and robustness of the transistor in these particular conditions. Thus, it appears that ionizing radiation has almost no effect on ESD performance of the protection device.