Characterization of ESD protection devices under total ionizing dose irradiation

In this paper, the total ionizing dose effects on electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection devices are investigated. Irradiation is conducted with 1.5 MeV He+ from a RPEA 4.0 MV Dynamitron accelerator, and the Barth 4002 transmission line pulse (TLP) tester is used for measurements. The ESD devices considered are a P+/NW diode, a Zener diode, gate grounded NMOS (GGNMOS), and lateral silicon controlled rectifiers (LSCR) fabricated in a 0.35 um BCD (Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS) technology. The pre- and post-irradiated TLP I-V characteristics are analyzed and compared in detail. Significant degradation in ESD protection is observed after exposure of devices to ionizing irradiation.