Transient-to-digital converter for ESD protection design in microelectronic systems

Abstract

An on-chip transient-to-digital converter for system-level electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection is proposed. The proposed transient-to-digital converter is designed to detect fast electrical transients during the system-level ESD events. The output digital thermometer codes can correspond to different ESD voltages under system-level ESD tests. The experimental results in a 0.18-mum CMOS integrated circuit (IC) with 3.3-V devices have confirmed the detection function and digital output codes.