Distributed electrical overstress protection for large density and high data rate communication applications

Abstract

Electrical overstress protection for high speed applications, such as integrated multiple subsystem communications, is provided. In certain embodiments, a semiconductor die with distributed and configurable electrical overstress protection is provided. The semiconductor die includes signal pads, a core circuit electrically connected to the signal pads, and a configurable overstress protection array operable to protect the core circuit from electrical overstress at the signal pads. The configurable overstress protection array includes a plurality of segmented overstress protection devices of two or more different device types, and both a number of selected overstress protection devices and a device type of the selected overstress protection devices is programmable. The subsystems configurations are enabled in FinFET technology. Such configurable overstress protection arrays can be distributed across the die to protect not only core circuit sub-systems at the die pads, but also between internal sub-system communication interfaces operating in different power domains.