TCAD Methodology for ESD Robustness Prediction of Smart Power ESD Devices

This paper presents a new method to predict the electrostatic-discharge (ESD) protection robustness of a device with technology-in-computer-aided-design (TCAD) simulations. Tested on different devices and two Smart Power technologies, the results are validated through electrical measurement and failure analysis. Failure current is always predicted with a good accuracy compared to technology spreading. In addition, the methodology provides a significant simulation time speedup compared to classical methods based on a temperature criterion