On-Chip sensors to measure level of transient events

On-die circuits were developed to measure the size of transient electrical events experienced at I/O pads. The circuits allow an integrated circuit (IC) to determine the peak voltages across the electrostatic discharge diodes during the event. Experiments and simulations with a 90 nm test chip show the sensor can determine the peak magnitude of the transient event within 1 A for events larger than 0.7 A and duration longer than 1 ns.