Sensing and Reliability Improvement of Electrostatic-Discharge Transient by Discrete Engineering for High-Voltage...

High-voltage n-channel lateral-diffused metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (nLDMOS) components, fabricated by a TSMC 0.25-m 60-V bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) process with drain-side embedded silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) of the n-p-n-arranged and p-n-p-arranged types, were investigated, in order to determine the devices' electrostatic discharge (ESD)-sensing behavior and capability by discrete anode engineering. As for the drain-side n-p-n-arranged type with discrete-anode manners, transmission⁻line⁻pulse (TLP) testing results showed that the ESD ability (I_t2 value) was slightly upgraded. When the discrete physical parameter was 91 rows, the optimal I_t2 reached 2.157 A (increasing 17.7% compared with the reference sample). On the other hand, the drain-side SCR p-n-p-arranged type with discrete-anode manner had excellent SCR behavior, and its I_t2 values could be increased to >7 A (increasing >281.9% compared with the reference DUT). Moreover, under discrete anode engineering, the drain-side SCR n-p-n-arranged and p-n-p-arranged types had clearly higher ESD ability, except for the few discrete physical parameters. Therefore, using the anode discrete engineering, the ESD dissipation ability of a high-voltage (HV) nLDMOS with drain-side SCRs will have greater effectiveness.