Prediction of the ESD Failure Current Based on a New Method Using the Shot Noise Model

Prediction of electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection performance is critical for estimating reliability in the IC design. However, due to the large injection and deep hysteresis encountered in the snapback of ESD devices, the failure current of ESD devices is hard to be predicted by simulation. In this article, a TCAD simulation method using the shot noise model to predict the failure current of ESD devices is proposed for the first time. The transmission line pulse (TLP) test results show the same trend as the simulation results, indicating that this method is convenient and effective to predict the ESD failure current. It is promising applications for the design of ESD devices and full-chip network protection.