Electrostatic discharge protection in integrated circuits, systems and methods
First Claim
1. An electrostatic discharge protection circuit for use in an integrated circuit having processing circuitry on a substrate for operation of the integrated circuit, the electrostatic discharge protection circuit comprising:
- a protection circuit with at least one device fabricated on said substrate and connected to a first bond pad to dissipate discharges into the substrate upon activation of the protection circuit;
a plurality of field effect transistors; and
a plurality of resistors wherein one of said resistors is connected between said protection circuit and a respective one of each of said plurality of field effect transistors to activate said protection circuit.
0 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An integrated circuit has a semiconductor die with a substrate and at least first and second bond pads. An internal circuit is fabricated on the semiconductor die and connected to the first bond pad. An electrostatic discharge protection circuit including cascaded bipolar transistors is connected in series with a field effect transistor between the first and second bond pads. In another version, an output buffer of the integrated circuit is divided into sections. An electrostatic discharge protection circuit is triggerable in response to a voltage in the substrate. Resistive connections are provided from the sections of the output buffer to one of the bond pads. The output buffer is operative upon an electrostatic discharge event to inject sufficient charge into the substrate to produce the voltage to trigger the electrostatic discharge protection circuit. Other circuits, devices, systems and methods are also disclosed.
74 Citations
21 Claims
-
1. An electrostatic discharge protection circuit for use in an integrated circuit having processing circuitry on a substrate for operation of the integrated circuit, the electrostatic discharge protection circuit comprising:
-
a protection circuit with at least one device fabricated on said substrate and connected to a first bond pad to dissipate discharges into the substrate upon activation of the protection circuit; a plurality of field effect transistors; and a plurality of resistors wherein one of said resistors is connected between said protection circuit and a respective one of each of said plurality of field effect transistors to activate said protection circuit. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
-
-
11. An integrated circuit comprising:
-
a substrate with bond pads; a transistor having plural sections, each section being connected in parallel; a plurality of resistors, each resistor connected between one of said sections and a first of said bond pads; a protection circuit which is triggerable in response to a voltage in said substrate; and said transistor operative upon an electrostatic discharge event to produce the voltage to trigger the protection circuit. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
-
Specification