Investigation of diode triggered silicon control rectifier turn-on time during ESD events

Diode-triggered silicon-controlled rectifier (DT-SCR) devices protect sensitive circuit nodes, such as high-frequency analog circuits and thin-gate complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits with high-speed input [1]. Reducing the turn-on time and overshoot voltage enhances the use of a DTSCR device in high-speed applications. We analyze the two lateral bipolar devices found in CMOS based process SCRS to improve the overall DTSCR turn-on time during an electrostatic discharge (ESD) event. We use technology computer-aided design (TCAD) device-level simulations to accurately predict the turn-on time of these parasitic bipolar devices in a 32nm CMOS technology.