Design of Power-Rail ESD Clamp Circuit with Adjustable Holding Voltage against Mis-trigger or Transient-Induced Latch-On Events

In this work, a new design of the ESD-transient detection circuit with the n-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor (nMOS) transistor drawn in the layout style of big field-effect transistor (BigFET) has been proposed and verified in a 65nm 1.2V CMOS process. As compared to the traditional RC-based ESD-transient detection circuit, the layout area of the new ESD-transient detection circuit can be greatly reduced by more than 54%. From the experimental results, the new proposed ESD-transient detection circuit with adjustable holding voltage can achieve long turn-on duration under the ESD stress condition, as well as better immunity against mis-trigger or transient-induced latch-on event under the fast power-on and transient noise conditions.