Dear ,

Today’s newsletter is focused on ESD and our partner Certus Semiconductor's ESD service and ESD's IP

Wishing you Success in 2023!

What is ESD? 

- Every physical contact between two separate bodies experiences an ESD event 

         The human body can only feel a >2500V ESD event 

          Electronic parts are easily destroyed by >10V events, unless protected 

- Every pin on an electronic part requires some level of ESD protection

          This helps it survive manufacturing

           Helps it survive end user environments 

- There are three primary ESD standards in the industry 

         HBM – Human Body Model 

         CDM – Charged Device Model 

         IEC 61000-4-2 – System level ESD

         IEC – International Electrotechnical Commission is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic  and related technologies

HBM and CDM 

- These standards apply only to components 

      Individual integrated circuits (IC) and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)

      Discrete parts 

- These standards are primarily used to determine a devices robustness in manufacturing 

- Typical HBM requirements for every parts PIN is 500V, 1000V or 2000V 

    Some extreme environments (i.e., automotive) require 4000V to 8000V 

- Typical CDM required for parts PIN is 500V 

    250V is common for SerDes / high speed interfaces

    750V is required for corners, pins in automotive and occasionally industrial applications 

IEC 61000-4-2

- This standard applies to systems and should rarely ever apply to components or PINs on an ASIC 

- This is typically tested with the GUN. Any ESD gun you ever see is for the IEC 

- We avoid IEC requirements on IC PINs due to it being much harsher 

- Customers in China frequently want IEC protection on IO’s, in most cases we may commit to 2kV IEC 

ESD Services:

Consulting 

- We can assist in debugging the failures associated with utilizing Foundry or In-House protection cells 

- We offer expert advice on how to test products for ESD, as well as helping with failure analysis 

ESD Design Services and IP 

- Each process node we have I/O’s in, we also have an ESD library 

- ESD library is the foundation for an I/O library 

- We offer specialized ESD protection cells for sensitive I/O pins 

         These include RF, low noise amplifiers (LNA), fiber optics, radio signals, and pins

Specialty ESD Protection 

- Sensitive RF Pins 

     We offer low capacitance ESD

            Capacitance is a parasitic parameter that hurts RF and high-speed digital I/O’s 

- We offer smaller ESD footprints 

     Save area over foundry ESD cells 

- TSMC and other foundry ESD cells require a special mask layer ESDIMP, that costs money 

       Our ESD cells remove the need for this layer, saving money per wafer 

- We offer lower power ESD cells

    Low leakage ESD targets the IoT and battery markets 

- High Voltage ESD

     We can provide very high voltage ESD cells in low voltage processes 

          I.E.: -10V to +35V in standard TSMC 3.3V and 1.8V processes

          MEMS and ANALOG sensor companies utilize this. Allows them to bring high voltages directly on chip and not need external components