International Business Machines Corporation

Globalfoundries Inc.

JunJun Li

Robert J Gauthier, Jr

Souvick Mitra

Christopher Stephen Putnam

Tom C Lee

Michel J Abou-Khalil

James Paul Di Sarro

Kiran V Chatty

John B Campi, Jr

Mujahid Muhammad

Rahul Mishra

Shunhua Thomas Chang

Theodorus E Standaert

William F Clark, Jr

Mahmoud A Mousa

Tenko Yamashita

Chengwen Pei

Alain F Loiseau

Ankit Srivastava

Hongmei Li

Kangguo Cheng

Anthony K Stamper

Shom Ponoth

John Atkinson Fifield

Nathan D Jack

Balasubramanian Pranatharthi Haran

William R Tonti

John J Ellis-Monaghan

Terence B Hook

Zhong-Xiang He

Kirk David Peterson

Robert Russell Robison

Xuefeng Liu

Albert Manhee Chu

Yan Zun Li

Thomas A Wallner

Michael J Hauser

Pinping Sun

Thomas W Wyckoff

Rahul Nayak

Michael J Abou-Khalil

Jeffrey Bowman Johnson

Huiming Bu

Bradford Lawrence Hunter

You Li

Mahender Kumar

Carrie Ellen Cox

Andrew A Turner

Kai Zhao

John B DeForge

Nathaniel R Chadwick

Dustin Kenneth Slisher

Amol Anil Joshi

Gregory J Schroer

Robert Gauthier

Robert J Gauthier

Xiaoping Liang

Xingle Wang

Aniket Srivastava

Mitra Souvick

Dimitrios K Kontos

Yang Yang

An integrated circuit having a CML driver including a driver biasing network. A first output pad and a second output pad are connected to a voltage pad. A first driver is connected to the first output pad and the voltage pad. A second driver is connected to the second output pad and the voltage pad. A first ESD circuit is connected to the voltage pad, the first output pad, and the first driver. A second ESD circuit is connected to the voltage pad, the second output pad, and the second driver. The first ESD circuit biases the first driver toward a voltage of the voltage pad when an ESD event occurs at the first output pad, and the second ESD circuit biases the second driver toward the voltage of the voltage pad when an ESD event occurs at the second output pad.

Structure and method for dynamic biasing to improve ESD robustness of current mode logic (CML) drivers

An electrostatic discharge protection circuit includes a power clamp device, a timing circuit including a first resistor, a first capacitor that is connected with the first resistor at a first node, and a second capacitor that is connected to a second node, a logic gate including a first input connected with the first node, a second input connected with the second node, and an output connected with the power clamp device, and a decoder device connected with a first address pin and a second address pin. The first address pin and the second address pin are used to detect the power clamp device switching on at time of power on and draining current.

Electrostatic discharge power clamp with fail-safe design

An electrostatic discharge protection circuit includes a transistor device, a first timing circuit including a first resistor and a first capacitor that is connected with the first resistor at a first node, a second timing circuit including a second resistor and a second capacitor that is connected with the second resistor at a second node, and a logic gate including a first input connected with the first node, a second input coupled with the second node, and an output connected with the transistor device.

Electrostatic discharge device with fail-safe design

Silicon controlled rectifiers (SCR), methods of manufacture and design structures are disclosed herein. The method includes forming a common P-well on a buried insulator layer of a silicon on insulator (SOI) wafer. The method further includes forming a plurality of silicon controlled rectifiers (SCR) in the P-well such that N+ diffusion cathodes of each of the plurality of SCRs are coupled together by the common P-well.

Silicon controlled rectifiers (SCR), methods of manufacture and design structures

Electrostatic discharge protection circuits and methods of fabricating an electrostatic discharge protection circuit, as well as methods of protecting an integrated circuit from a transient electrostatic discharge event. The electrostatic discharge protection circuit includes a power clamp device, a first timing circuit with a first resistor and a first capacitor that is coupled with the first resistor at a first node, and a second timing circuit including a second resistor and a second capacitor that is coupled with the second resistor at a second node. The electrostatic discharge protection circuit further includes a logic gate with a first input coupled with the first node, a second input coupled with the second node, and an output coupled with the power clamp device. The logic gate responds to voltages at the first and second nodes to control the impedance state of the power clamp device.

Structures and methods are provided for nanosecond electrical pulse anneal processes. The method of forming an electrostatic discharge (ESD) N+/P+ structure includes forming an N+ diffusion on a substrate and a P+ diffusion on the substrate. The P+ diffusion is in electrical contact with the N+ diffusion. The method further includes forming a device between the N+ diffusion and the P+ diffusion. A method of annealing a structure or material includes applying an electrical pulse across an electrostatic discharge (ESD) N+/P+ structure for a plurality of nanoseconds.

Structures, methods and applications for electrical pulse anneal processes

An approach for monitoring electrostatic discharge (ESD) event of an integrated circuit. The approach includes a canary device for exhibiting an impedance shift when affected by an ESD pulse, wherein circuit drain of the canary device is connected to an input terminal of the circuit structure. The approach further includes circuit source and logic gates of the canary device, connected to a circuit drain of ESD transistor of the circuit structure, wherein circuit source of the ESD transistor is connected to an output terminal of the circuit structure. The approach further includes a logic gate of the ESD transistor, connected to an enable signal of the circuit structure, and wherein the enable signal is connected to the output terminal through a capacitor of the circuit structure. In addition, the enable signal is also connected to the input terminal through a resistor of the circuit structure.

On chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) event monitoring

A system and method sorts integrated circuit devices. Integrated circuit devices are manufactured on a wafer according to an integrated circuit design using manufacturing equipment. The design produces integrated circuit devices that are identically designed and perform differently based on manufacturing process variations. The integrated circuit devices are for use in a range of environmental conditions, when placed in service. Testing is performed on the integrated circuit devices. Environmental maximums are individually predicted for each device. The environmental maximums comprise ones of the environmental conditions that must not be exceeded for each device to perform above a given failure rate. Each integrated circuit device is assigned at least one of a plurality of grades based on the environmental maximums predicted for each device. The integrated circuit devices are provided to different forms of service having different ones of the environmental conditions based on the grades assigned to each device.

Methodology of grading reliability and performance of chips across wafer

An electrostatic discharge protection circuit is disclosed. A method of manufacturing a semiconductor structure includes forming a semiconductor controlled rectifier including a first plurality of fingers between an n-well body contact and an anode in an n-well, and a second plurality of fingers between a p-well body contact and a cathode in a p-well.

SCR with fin body regions for ESD protection

Methods to fabricate a stacked nanowire field effect transistor (FET) with reduced gate resistance are provided. The nanowire stack in the stacked nanowire FET can be provided by first forming a material stack of alternating sacrificial material layers and nanowire material layer. The sacrificial material layers and selected nanowire material layers in the material stack are subsequently removed to increase a vertical distance between two active nanowire material layers.

Nanowire structure with selected stack removed for reduced gate resistance and method of fabricating same

Disclosed is a test structure that can be used to characterize a specific interface resistance within a multi-layer conductive structure, such as a multi-layer ohmic contact. In the test structure first and second transmission line model (TLM) structures both incorporate a row of essentially identical contact pads separated by spaces with progressively increasing lengths. Conductive mesas, also with progressively increasing lengths, are positioned within the spaces between all but the initial pair of adjacent contacts pads. The first and second TLM structures differ only with respect to the presence of a single conductive layer on each of the conductive mesas. System, method and computer program product embodiments are able to extract resistance parameters associated with the first and second TLM structures, including conductive mesa to conductive layer interface resistances, based current-voltage measurements acquired from both of the TLM structures.

Characterization of interface resistance in a multi-layer conductive structure

Circuits and methods of fabricating circuits that provide electrostatic discharge protection, as well as methods of protecting an integrated circuit from electrostatic discharge. The protection circuit may include a power clamp device, a timing circuit including a resistor and a capacitor that is coupled with the resistor at a node, and a power clamp device coupled with the timing circuit at the node. The capacitor includes a plurality of capacitor elements. The protection circuit further includes a plurality of electronic fuses. Each electronic fuse is coupled with a respective one of the capacitor elements. A field effect transistor may be coupled in parallel with the resistor of the timing circuit, and may be used to bypass the resistor to provide a programming current to any electronic fuse coupled with a capacitor element of abnormally low impedance.

Self-healing electrostatic discharge power clamp

Circuits and methods for providing electrostatic discharge protection. The protection circuit may include a power clamp device, a timing circuit including a resistor and a capacitor that is coupled with the resistor at a node, a transmission gate configured to selectively connect the node of the timing circuit with the power clamp device, and a control circuit coupled with the node. The control circuit is configured to control the transmission gate based upon whether or not the capacitor is defective. The timing circuit may be deactivated if the capacitor in the timing circuit is defective and the associated chip is powered. Alternatively, the timing circuit may be activated if the capacitor in the timing circuit is not defective.

Electrostatic discharge protection circuit with a fail-safe mechanism

Growing community of inventors

Williston, VT, United States of America

JunJun Li