Robust Silicon-Controlled Rectifier With High-Holding Voltage for On-Chip Electrostatic Protection.

In this article, a robust high-holding voltage silicon-controlled rectifier (HHSCR) is implemented and realized in a 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ BCD process for on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection. The proposed HHSCR was constructed by embedding a NMOSFET in the p-well of a modified lateral silicon-controlled rectifier (MLSCR). Benefiting from the shunting effect of the embedded NMOSFET path, the proposed HHSCR achieved a high-holding voltage with a relatively high robustness. Transmission line pulse (TLP) test results show that the proposed HHSCR exhibits a high-holding voltage of 11.6 V and a failure current (${I}_{\text {t2}}{)}$ of 1.59 A at a finger width of 50 $\mu \text{m}$. Furthermore, the internal physical mechanism of the proposed HHSCR was explored by technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]