Circuit-level electrothermal simulation of electrostatic discharge in integrated circuits

A circuit-level electrothermal simulator, MICS (Mitsubishi Circuit Simulator), is presented with parasitic bipolar transistor action and lattice heating taken into account. Diffusion capacitance in parasitic bipolar transistors is introduced to cover turn-on behavior under short rise-time current. Device temperatures are simulated from calculated electrical characteristics and the closed-form solution of the heat transfer equation. Simulation results show that this tool is valuable in evaluating electrostatic discharge (ESD) robustness in integrated circuits.