Ht. Weston et al., A NEWLY OBSERVED HIGH-FREQUENCY EFFECT ON THE ESD PROTECTION UTILIZEDIN A GIGAHERTZ NMOS TECHNOLOGY, Journal of electrostatics, 31(2-3), 1993, pp. 79-89
The standard ESD protection network incorporated onto NMOS integrated
circuits is found to turn on partially when subject to valid low volta
ge waveforms in high frequency applications. We report on a study of t
his phenomenon, and present a physical model that explains our observa
tions. It is suggested that the underlying mechanism contributes to th
e excellent defense provided by the protection circuitry in convention
al usage against damage from large voltage, fast transients.