Effective electrostatic discharge protection elements for CMOS circuits

A new electric circuit layout and physical structure are proposed for an element of protection against electrostatic discharges. The new element features twice as small resistance to the electrostatic discharge current. The reduced resistance is obtained by using additional transistors implementing feedback. The use of the new electric circuit layout and of a new simulation technique that takes into account substrate transistors made it possible to reduce the element's area 1.5-fold and its electric capacity 1.6-fold.