Improving surface bipolar activity in thin gate oxide DE-NMOS — A critical HV I/O protection element for nano-meter scale technologies

Drain Extended (DE-NMOS) ESD protection devices exhibit low ESD performance due to poor bipolar action. The purpose of this work is to investigate the role of surface bipolar phenomenon in 90nm DE-NMOS, which triggers failure due to bipolar turn-on, and next study the impact of adding source/drain resistors on their ESD robustness.