The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 18, 2020
Filed:
Feb. 22, 2018
Infineon Technologies Ag, Neubiberg, DE;
Stefan Seidl, Munich, DE;
David Alvarez, Munich, DE;
Infineon Technologies AG, Neubiberg, DE;
Abstract
Techniques for electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection that apply a negative voltage to an MOS power clamp during an ESD event. The power clamp may be initially turned on by a short positive pulse to the gate to trigger the power clamp to switch into a parasitic bipolar mode, to quickly shunt the electrical energy from the ESD event around other circuitry. However, repeatedly triggering an NMOS power clamp into bipolar mode may cause the power clamp performance to degrade. For example, the NMOS power clamp may develop an increase in leakage current. The techniques of this disclosure apply a negative voltage to the gate of the power clamp which may reduce the holding and triggering voltage during the ESD event as well as improve leakage degradation of the power clamp after repeated ESD events.