Nano crystal quantum dots tunable on-chip ESD protection

This paper reports a new nano crystal quantum dots (NC-QD) tunable on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection mechanism and structures. Experiments validated the programmable ESD protection concept. Prototype structures achieved an adjustable ESD triggering voltage range of 2.5V, very fast ESD response of ∼100pS, ESD protection density of 25mA/µm in human body model (HBM) and 400mA/µm in charged device model (CDM), and very low leakage current of Ileak∼15pA. It can be potentially used to design field-programmable ESD protection for mixed-signal IC in nano scales.