Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp. Ltd.

Chien-Yuan Lee

Sheng-Fang Cheng

Yen-Lin Liu

Chen-Chih Wu

Kuo-Ji Chen

Tzu-Yi Yang

Jen-Chou Tseng

Chia-Hui Chen

Po-Hsiang Lan

Da-Wei Lai

Tsung-Ju Yang

Wen-Yang Hsu

Among other things, one or more semiconductor arrangements and techniques for forming such semiconductor arrangements are provided. A semiconductor arrangement comprises a first guard ring surrounding at least a portion of a device, and a first poly layer formed over the first guard ring.

Guard ring structure of semiconductor arrangement

A FinFET device includes a plurality of FinFET devices formed on a corresponding plurality of fins in a multilevel interconnect semiconductor device. Each source and each drain is coupled to a metal interconnect level by a metal resistive element that is subjacent the lowermost interconnect level. In one embodiment, a metal segment extending over a plurality of the fins includes contacts to each of the fins, thereby providing subjacent metal resistive elements of different lengths. The plurality of fins and subjacent metal segments are arranged such that each of the FinFET devices has the same total resistance provided by the source and drain metal resistive elements, even though the source metal resistive element and drain metal resistive element associated with the fins may have different lengths. The arrangement provides the same turn-on resistance and the same ESD failure current for each FinFET device.

FinFET and transistors with resistors and protection against electrostatic discharge (ESD)

A device includes a first power transistor, a second power transistor electrically connected in series with the first power transistor, a first electrostatic discharge (ESD) detection circuit, and a first control circuit electrically connected to the first ESD detection circuit and the first power transistor.

Electrostatic discharge protection circuit and related method

An apparatus includes first and second switches. The first switch is for coupling a first node to a second node responsive to a first control signal having a first value, and for decoupling these nodes responsive to the first control signal having a second value. The second switch is for coupling the first node to a third node responsive to a second control signal having the first value, and for decoupling these nodes responsive to the second control signal having the second value. A load is coupled between the second and third nodes. A detection circuit coupled to the first node is configured to generate a signal indicating whether voltage at the first node exceeds a threshold. First and second modules are configured to set the first and second control signals to the second value responsive to the signal indicating that the voltage at the first node exceeds the threshold.

High voltage protection apparatus and method

A latch-up prevention structure and method for ultra-small high voltage tolerant cell is provided. In one embodiment, the integrated circuit includes an input and/or output pad, a floating high-voltage n-well (HVNW) connected to the input and/or output pad through a P+ in the floating HVNW and also connected to a first voltage supply, a low-voltage n-well (LVNW) connected to a second voltage supply through a N+ in the LVNW, a HVNW control circuit, and a guard-ring HVNW, where the first voltage supply has higher voltage level than the second voltage supply, guard-ring HVNW is inserted in between the floating HVNW and LVNW to prevent a latch-up path between a P+ in HVNW and N+ in LVNW by using the HVNW control circuit that controls the guard-ring HVNW's voltage level. The guard-ring HVNW's voltage level is matched by the floating HVNW's voltage level.

Growing community of inventors

Zhubei, Taiwan

Chien-Yuan Lee