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In this Letter, a novel vertical bipolar junction transistor (BJT) triggered silicon-controlled rectifier (VBTSCR) is proposed for advanced nanoscale electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection applications. With the help of a vertical NPN transistor in floating base configuration, the new silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) structure achieves lower trigger voltage and better clamping capacity than the prior enhanced modified lateral SCR (EMLSCR) under the same layout footprint. The ESD characteristics are measured using the transmission line pulsing tester. Compared with that of EMLSCR, the trigger voltage of VBTSCR drops by 1 V, and the effective ESD robustness of VBTSCR has been doubled significantly. Based on these advantages, the proposed VBTSCR can provide ESD protection for the advanced 1.8/2.5 V input/output circuits more efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two high holding voltage silicon controlled rectifiers (SCRs) with segmented layout for high-robust ESD protection are proposed, which are called SeSCR (segmented SCR) and anti-SeSCR (anti-segmented SCR), implemented in a 0.6 pm silicon on insulator (SOI) process. The transmission line pulse (TLP) characterisation results show that the holding voltage of the proposed structures can be elevated and adjusted with new layout topologies and different width of the segmentations for specific purposes. Meanwhile, the equivalent schematics and mechanisms of the segmented SCRs are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]