Winbond Electronics Corporation

Windbond Electronics Corp.

Ling-Yen Yeh

Ta-Lee Yu

Chau-Neng Wu

Konrad Kwang-Leei Young

Frank S-t Lin

An electrostatic discharge protection circuit formed in a semiconductor substrate includes a vertical bipolar junction transistor having a base which is grounded, an emitter connected to an output/input bonding pad of an integrated circuit, and a collector connected to a high power source via a resistor. The resistor is a parasitic resistor created by controlling the distance between the diffusion regions or the distance between a p-type well region and an n-type well region or formed by a lightly doped diffusion region in the semiconductor substrate to prevent current crowding and increase electrostatic protection.

Electrostatic discharge protection circuit

A protection circuit for a CMOS integrated circuit which is biased with a first voltage and a second voltage includes a voltage divider, a voltage comparator, and a switch. The full level of the first voltage is higher than that of the second voltage. The voltage divider divides the first voltage to be compared with the second voltage in the voltage comparator. The switch is controlled by the voltage comparator. The switch isolates the CMOS integrated circuit from the first voltage when the first voltage is lower than the second voltage. Therefore, no forward bias current path exists in the CMOS integrated circuit even though the voltage levels of the first and second voltages reach their full levels at different times.

Growing community of inventors

Taipei, Taiwan

Ling-Yen Yeh