NLDMOS ESD Scaling Under Human Metal Model for 40-V Mixed-Signal Applications

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) robustness of LDMOS (laterally diffused MOS) devices is found to be highly dependent on the type of ESD stress. In particular, the device's ESD robustness does not scale with the device width, and this condition is substantially aggravated during the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61000-4-2 stress condition. IEC 61000-4-2 is a system-level ESD standard increasingly being adopted in the industry for ESD robustness assessment at the integrated circuit level. A comprehensive evaluation under the IEC 61000-4-2 stress impacting precision circuit designs is introduced in this letter for variable width LDMOS devices fabricated in a 0.18-mu m bipolar-CMOS-DMOS process for 40-V mixed-signal applications.