Full‐Chip ESD Protection

On‐chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection designs must be conducted from the full‐chip perspective, never in the simple language of individual standalone ESD protection “device.” This chapter presents examples of full‐chip ESD protection design. The ESD design window must be considered dynamically and in reference with the protection nodes and process modules, ESD stressing modes, and the functional and power domains. The principles for full‐chip ESD protection designs discussed lays the foundation for implementing whole‐chip ESD protection. One common misunderstanding in the IC design community is that there exists a magic one‐for‐all ESD protection solution for ICs. There is no shortcut in practical ESD protection designs other than following the full‐chip ESD protection perspectives and optimizing ESD protection structures quantitively at chip level.