An electrostatic discharge protection circuit with adjustable maintenance voltage

Abstract

The invention relates to the field of electronic static discharge (ESD) protecting circuits of integrated circuit chips, and in particular relates to an instantaneously-triggered and adjustable maintaining voltage type ESD protecting circuit. The adjustable maintaining voltage type electronic static discharge protecting circuit comprises an instantaneous triggering module, a release device controlled silicon and a maintaining voltage regulating module; the maintaining voltage regulating module is connected with the controlled silicon and comprises a resistor R2, a capacitor C2, an inverter INV1, a PMOS (P-channel Metal Oxide Semiconductor) Mp1 and a PMOS MP2. With the adoption of the adjustable maintaining voltage type electronic static discharge protecting circuit, the maintaining voltage can be kept to be greatly less than the power supply voltage when then chip is in an idle state, and thus the electronic static charge can be fully released; when the chip is in a working state, the maintaining voltage is more than the power supply voltage to avoid the latch-up effect.

Description

Technical field [0001] The invention relates to the field of integrated circuit chip electrostatic discharge (Electronic Static Discharge, ESD) protection circuits, in particular to an ESD protection circuit using transient triggering and adjustable sustain voltage. Background technique [0002] In order to obtain faster chip operating speed, smaller integrated area, smaller operating voltage and smaller power consumption, the process feature size of integrated circuits is continuously reduced. At the same time, the gate oxide layer of the device is getting thinner and thinner, resulting in a smaller and smaller breakdown voltage. Integrated circuit chips are inevitably subjected to electrostatic shock during manufacturing, packaging, and work. In a very short time, a large amount of charge is transferred to the corresponding pins of the chip. If a large amount of charge cannot be discharged in time, the high voltage will cause damage to the internal circuit of the chip and malf...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, the trigger voltage triggered by the thyristor SCR itself is as high as tens of volts, and the maintenance voltage is often lower than the chip operating power supply voltage V DD , which will potentially cause latch-up problems

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