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When more circuit functions are integrated into a single chip fabricated by the GaN-on-Silicon process, the need for on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection design becomes crucial to safeguard GaN integrated circuits (ICs). In this work, the power-rail ESD clamp circuit with gate-coupled design, fabricated in a GaN-on-Silicon process, was investigated. By increasing the gate-coupled capacitance, ESD level of the power-rail ESD clamp circuit can be significantly improved. However, the increased capacitance induces transient leakage current during normal power-on operation. To overcome this issue, a new detection circuit was proposed, which can differentiate between the ESD event and the normal power-on transient operation. Therefore, incorporating this new proposed detection circuit with the gate-coupled design allows for good ESD robustness, while also preventing transient leakage current during normal power-on condition.

Predicting and understanding thorax injury is fundamental for the assessment and development of safety systems to mitigate injury risk to the increasing and vulnerable aged population. While computational human models have contributed to the understanding of injury biomechanics, contemporary human body models have struggled to predict rib fractures and explain the increased incidence of injury in the aged population. The present study enhanced young and aged human body models (HBMs) by integrating a biofidelic cortical bone constitutive model and population-based bone material properties. The HBMs were evaluated using side impact sled tests assessed using chest compression and number of rib fractures. The increase in thoracic kyphosis and the associated change in rib angle with increasing age, led to increased rib torsional moment increasing the rib shear stress. Coupled with and improved cortical bone constitutive model and aged material properties, the higher resulting shear stress led to an increased number of rib fractures in the aged model. The importance of shear stress resulting from torsional load was further investigated using an isolated rib model. In contrast, HBM chest compression, a common thorax injury-associated metric, was insensitive to the aging factors studied. This study proposes an explanation for the increased incidence of thorax injury with increasing age reported in epidemiological data, and provides an enhanced understanding of human rib mechanics that will benefit assessment and design of future safety systems.

Introduction: Human body models (HBMs) play a key role in improving modern vehicle safety systems to protect broad populations. However, their geometry is commonly derived from single individuals chosen to meet global anthropometric targets, thus their internal anatomy may not fully represent the HBM’s target demographic. Past studies show sixth rib cross-sectional geometry differences between HBM ribs and population-derived ribs, and corrections to HBM ribs based on these data have improved HBM’s abilities to predict rib fracture locations.Methods: We measure and report average and standard deviations (SDs) in rib cross-sectional geometric properties derived from live subject CT scans of 240 adults aged 18–90. Male and female results are given as functions of rib number and rib lengthwise position for ribs 2 through 11. Population means/SDs are reported for measures of rib total area, rib cortical bone area, and rib endosteal area, as well as inertial moment properties of these rib sections. These population corridors are compared between males and females, and against the baseline rib geometries defined in six current HBMs.Results: Total cross-sectional area results found average males ribs to be larger than those of females by between approximately 1–2 SDs depending on rib number and position, and larger in cortical bone cross-sectional area by between 0–1 SDs. Inertial moment ratios showed female ribs being between approximately 0–1 SDs more elongated than male ribs, dependent again on rib number and position. Rib cross-sectional areas from 5 of the 6 HBMs were found to be overly large along substantial portions of most ribs when compared to average population corridors. Similarly, rib aspect ratios in HBMs deviated from average population data by up to 3 SDs in regions towards sternal rib ends.Discussion: Overall, while most HBMs capture overall trends such as reductions in cross-section along shaft lengths, many also exhibit local variation that deviates from population trends. This study’s results provide the first reference values for assessing the cross-sectional geometry of human ribs across a wide range of rib levels. Results also further provide clear guidelines to improve rib geometry definitions present in current HBMs in order to better represent their target demographic.

Rib fractures remain a common injury for vehicle occupants in crashes. The risk of a human sustaining rib fractures from thorax loading is highly variable, potentially due to a variability in individual factors such as material properties and geometry of the ribs and ribcage. Human body models (HBMs) with a detailed ribcage can be used as occupant substitutes to aid in the prediction of rib injury risk at the tissue level in crash analysis. To improve this capability, model parametrization can be used to represent human variability in simulation studies. The aim of this study was to identify the variations in the physical properties of the human thorax that have the most influence on rib fracture risk for the population of vehicle occupants. A total of 15 different geometrical and material factors, sourced from published literature, were varied in a parametrized SAFER HBM. Parametric sensitivity analyses were conducted for two crash configurations, frontal and near-side impacts. The results show that variability in rib cortical bone thickness, rib cortical bone material properties, and rib cross-sectional width had the greatest influence on the risk for an occupant to sustain two or more fractured ribs in both impacts. Therefore, it is recommended that these three parameters be included in rib fracture risk analysis with HBMs for the population of vehicle occupants.

Introduction: Chest deformation has been proposed as the best predictor of thoracic injury risk in frontal impacts. Finite Element Human Body Models (FE-HBM) can enhance the results obtained in physical crash tests with Anthropometric Test Devices (ATD) since they can be exposed to omnidirectional impacts and their geometry can be modified to reflect specific population groups. This study aims to assess the sensitivity of two thoracic injury risk criteria (PC Score and Cmax) to several personalization techniques of FE-HBMs.Methods: Three 30° nearside oblique sled tests were reproduced using the SAFER HBM v8 and three personalization techniques were applied to this model to evaluate the influence on the risk of thoracic injuries. First, the overall mass of the model was adjusted to represent the weight of the subjects. Second, the model anthropometry and mass were modified to represent the characteristics of the post-mortem human subjects (PMHS). Finally, the spine alignment of the model was adapted to the PMHS posture at t = 0 ms, to conform to the angles between spinal landmarks measured in the PMHS. The following two metrics were used to predict three or more fractured ribs (AIS3+) of the SAFER HBM v8 and the effect of personalization techniques: the maximum posterior displacement of any studied chest point (Cmax), and the sum of the upper and lower deformation of selected rib points (PC score).Results: Despite having led to statistically significant differences in the probability of AIS3+ calculations, the mass-scaled and morphed version provided, in general, lower values for injury risk than the baseline model and the postured version being the latter, which exhibited the better approximation to the PMHS tests in terms of probability of injury. Additionally, this study found that the prediction of AIS3+ chest injuries based on PC Score resulted in higher probability values than the prediction based on Cmax for the loading conditions and personalization techniques analyzed within this study.Discussion: This study could demonstrate that the personalization techniques do not lead to linear trends when they are used in combination. Furthermore, the results included here suggest that these two criteria will result in significantly different predictions if the chest is loaded more asymmetrically.

Finite element Human Body Models are increasingly becoming vital tools for injury assessment and are expected to play an important role in virtual vehicle safety testing. With the aim of realizing models to study sex-differences seen in the injury- and fatality-risks from epidemiology, we developed models that represent an average female and an average male. The models were developed with an objective to allow tissue-based skeletal injury assessment, and thus non-skeletal organs and joints were defined with simplified characterizations to enhance computational efficiency and robustness. The model lineup comprises female and male representations of (seated) vehicle occupants and (standing) vulnerable road users, enabling the safety assessment of broader segments of the road user population. In addition, a new workflow utilized in the model development is presented. In this workflow, one model (the seated female) served as the base model while all the other models were generated as closely-linked derivative models, differing only in terms of node coordinates and mass distribution. This approach opens new possibilities to develop and maintain further models as part of the model lineup, representing different types of road users to reflect the ongoing transitions in mobility patterns (like bicyclists and e-scooter users). In this paper, we evaluate the kinetic and kinematic responses of the occupant and standing models to blunt impacts, mainly on the torso, in different directions (front, lateral, and back). The front and lateral impacts to the thorax showed responses comparable to the experiments, while the back impact varied with the location of impact (T1 and T8). Abdomen bar impact showed a stiffer load-deflection response at higher intrusions beyond 40 mm, because of simplified representation of internal organs. The lateral shoulder impact responses were also slightly stiffer, presumably from the simplified shoulder joint definition. This paper is the first in a series describing the development and validation of the new Human Body Model lineup, VIVA+. With the inclusion of an average-sized female model as a standard model in the lineup, we seek to foster an equitable injury evaluation in future virtual safety assessments.

The present study has three objectives: First, to analyze the chest deflection measured in nearside oblique tests performed with three post mortem human subjects (PMHS). Second, to assess the capability of a HBM to predict the chest deflection sustained by the PMHS. Third to evaluate the influence on chest deflection prediction of subject-specific HBM. Three dimensional chest deformation of five anterior chest landmarks was extracted from three PMHS (A-C) in three sled tests. The sled test configurations corresponded to a 30 degree nearside oblique impact at 35 km/h. Two different restraint system versions (RSv) were used. RSv1 was used for PMHS A and B while RSv2 was used for PMHS C. The capability of the SAFER HBM (called baseline model) to predict PMHS chest deflection was benchmarked by means of the PMHS test results. In a second step, the anthropometry, mass and pre-impact posture of the baseline HBM were modified to the PMHS-specific characteristics to develop a model to assess the influence of personalization techniques in the capability of the human body model to predict PMHS chest deflection. In the sled tests, the measured sternum compression relative to the eighth thoracic vertebra in the PMHS tests was 49, 54 and 55 millimeters respectively. The HBM baseline model predicted 48%, 43% and 34% of the deflections measured in the PMHS tests, while the personalized version predicted 38%, 34% and 28%. When chest deflection was analyzed in x-, y- and z-direction for the five chest landmarks it was found that neither the baseline HBM nor the personalized model predicted x, y and z axis deflections. The PMHS in situ chest deflection was found to be sensitive to the variation in restraint system and the three PMHS exhibited greater values of lower right chest deflection compared to what was found in available literature. The baseline HBM underpredicted peak chest deflection obtained in the PMHS test. The personalized model was not capable of predicting the chest deflection sustained by the PMHS. Hence, further biofidelity investigations have to be carried out on the human body thorax model for oblique loading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ultra-high voltage (UHV) Lateral-diffused MOSFET (LDMOS) transistor has been widely used in power circuit applications and also used as an electrostatic discharge (ESD) self-protection device. However, the ESD ability of an UHV LDMOS is generally worse than that of low- and high-voltage (HV) devices, which means this UHV LDMOS device can be easily failed under an ESD event. Then, the method of embedded a silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) into the HV LDMOS has been used in the HV circuit as an ESD protection technique. But when this architecture is applied to UHV devices, will its ESD capability be as good as in HV devices? A novel SCR with a P-body well architecture is proposed, which can effectively enhance the ESD ability of the UHV nLDMOS device when the drain side is embedded this new structure. The proposed structure can greatly improve the ESD capability of the device without adding any extra process step (& photomask), layout area and affecting the basic breakdown voltage. Finally, the proposed structure of the PPP-arranged type with the P-body well can greatly increase the ESD (FOM) ability which $\text{I}_{\mathrm{ t2}}$ and HBM ability can be increased by 68.7% and 22.2% (72.9%), respectively, as compared with the conventional SCR PPP-arranged type.

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) transient events can often damage semiconductor components. Therefore, the ultrahigh-voltage (UHV) circular n-channel lateral diffused metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor (nLDMOS) usually used in power electronics needs to have ESD self-protection capabilities. In this paper, the geometric parameters of 300-V and 200-V UHV circular nLDMOSs were modulated using different layouts at the drain side. The high-voltage p-well (HVPW) layer was used to form various super junctions (SJs) in the drift region. The modulations were classified as SJ length, SJ concentration-gradient thickness, HVPW ring-sector, and rotated SJ concentration gradient modulations in the drift region. Various HVPWs were used to produce several SJs in the drain drift region. According to the final measurement results, all modulation processes maintained the original physical characteristics of high breakdown voltage. Devices with the SJ length and SJ concentration-gradient thickness’s modulations provided the best ESD robustness. The ESD testing value of the human-body model (HBM) will increase with the increase of the SJ length and SJ thickness modulations. The HBM value increased from the 1500 V reference to 4000V (increased by 166.66%).

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) events are the main factors impacting the reliability of NAND Flash memory. The behavior of human body model (HBM) failure and the corresponding physical mechanism of 3D NAND Flash memory are investigated in this paper. A catastrophic burn-out failure during HBM zapping is first presented. Analysis shows that NMOS fingers' local heating induced by inhomogeneous substrate resistance Rsub and local heating induced by the drain contact and 3D stacked IC (SIC) structure lead to the failure. Therefore, a new approach is proposed to reduce local heat generation. Finally, by increasing N+ length (NPL) and introducing a novel contact strip, the silicon result shows enhanced ESD robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.

This work proposes a new method to estimate the correlation between human body model (HBM) and transmission line pulse (TLP) based on RC thermal equivalent model to obtain the normalized critical temperature. Gate-grounded nMOS (ggnMOS) devices with uniform current distribution are used to verify the proposed equivalent equations. Further, the detailed discussion for the distinction between frequently used energy equivalence and the proposed equivalent method is compared. In addition, correlation factor (CF) between HBM and TLP is also analyzed and summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting and understanding thorax injury is fundamental for the assessment and development of safety systems to mitigate injury risk to the increasing and vulnerable aged population. While computational human models have contributed to the understanding of injury biomechanics, contemporary human body models have struggled to predict rib fractures and explain the increased incidence of injury in the aged population. The present study enhanced young and aged human body models (HBMs) by integrating a biofidelic cortical bone constitutive model and population-based bone material properties. The HBMs were evaluated using side impact sled tests assessed using chest compression and number of rib fractures. The increase in thoracic kyphosis and the associated change in rib angle with increasing age, led to increased rib torsional moment increasing the rib shear stress. Coupled with and improved cortical bone constitutive model and aged material properties, the higher resulting shear stress led to an increased number of rib fractures in the aged model. The importance of shear stress resulting from torsional load was further investigated using an isolated rib model. In contrast, HBM chest compression, a common thorax injury-associated metric, was insensitive to the aging factors studied. This study proposes an explanation for the increased incidence of thorax injury with increasing age reported in epidemiological data, and provides an enhanced understanding of human rib mechanics that will benefit assessment and design of future safety systems., Competing Interests: BP was employed by Autoliv Research. CM was employed by Honda Development & Manufacturing of America. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Corrales, Bolte, Pipkorn, Markusic and Cronin.)

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is a well-known problem in integrated circuits (ICs) that impacts the reliability, yield, and cost of the ICs. In this paper, a low-leakage, static ESD clamp is proposed in 65-nm CMOS technology. CMOS thyristor was added as a delay element to the conventional diode triggered static clamp to improve its on time during the ESD stress, while the thick oxide transistors were used to reduce the leakage under normal operating conditions. The proposed clamp was characterized at different process corners under ESD stresses. The transmission-line pulse measurement results show that the clamp is capable of handling 3.21 A of current, and has 180 pA as the leakage current at room temperature. Measurement results exhibit that the clamp is robust against false triggering and the latch-up. The proposed clamp passes both +3.5 and −4.5 kV HBM stresses and passes +700 and −450 V CDM stresses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a method to derive component metal–metal electrostatic discharge (ESD) rating from its human body model (HBM) ESD rating. Symbolic computations and equivalent circuit simulations are used for this purpose. It can be seen from the components datasheets, that the machine model (MM) rating is often ten times less than the HBM rating. This paper proposes an explanation of this dependence derived from thermal failure physics. This paper presents a method of the ESD rating estimation based on injected power or charge analysis. This estimation method also could be applied for the CDM and charged board model (CBM) cases. We obtained a good correlation of HBM and MM ratings and a limited correlation of HBM and CBM/CDM ratings. The CBM case for power mosfet also was considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) robustness improvement of ultra-high-voltage devices is a challenging task. This paper presents an ESD robustness enhancement study of an 800 V junction field-effect transistor (JFET) including a silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) structure. During a human body model (HBM) event, the fabricated SCR-JFET showed a deep voltage snapback and an unexpectedly high current peak, resulting in an ESD failure due to current filamentation. 3-D TCAD analysis is effectively utilized for ESD enhancement study. First, 3-D HBM simulation reproduces the current filamentation phenomenon and the observed ESD failure. Then, a drain modified SCR-JFET, which includes a p+ ballast region, is studied. TCAD simulations demonstrate ESD robustness improvement with the ballast device and make clear its performance enhancement mechanism. Based on the TCAD study results, the ballast device is fabricated. Photo-emission microscope measurement results clearly show an alleviation of the current filamentation. As a result of HBM tests, we successfully improve HBM robustness from 1.93 kV to 2.63 kV with the ballast structure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction: Human body models (HBMs) play a key role in improving modern vehicle safety systems to protect broad populations. However, their geometry is commonly derived from single individuals chosen to meet global anthropometric targets, thus their internal anatomy may not fully represent the HBM's target demographic. Past studies show sixth rib cross-sectional geometry differences between HBM ribs and population-derived ribs, and corrections to HBM ribs based on these data have improved HBM's abilities to predict rib fracture locations. Methods: We measure and report average and standard deviations (SDs) in rib cross-sectional geometric properties derived from live subject CT scans of 240 adults aged 18-90. Male and female results are given as functions of rib number and rib lengthwise position for ribs 2 through 11. Population means/SDs are reported for measures of rib total area, rib cortical bone area, and rib endosteal area, as well as inertial moment properties of these rib sections. These population corridors are compared between males and females, and against the baseline rib geometries defined in six current HBMs. Results: Total cross-sectional area results found average males ribs to be larger than those of females by between approximately 1-2 SDs depending on rib number and position, and larger in cortical bone cross-sectional area by between 0-1 SDs. Inertial moment ratios showed female ribs being between approximately 0-1 SDs more elongated than male ribs, dependent again on rib number and position. Rib cross-sectional areas from 5 of the 6 HBMs were found to be overly large along substantial portions of most ribs when compared to average population corridors. Similarly, rib aspect ratios in HBMs deviated from average population data by up to 3 SDs in regions towards sternal rib ends. Discussion: Overall, while most HBMs capture overall trends such as reductions in cross-section along shaft lengths, many also exhibit local variation that deviates from population trends. This study's results provide the first reference values for assessing the cross-sectional geometry of human ribs across a wide range of rib levels. Results also further provide clear guidelines to improve rib geometry definitions present in current HBMs in order to better represent their target demographic., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Holcombe and Huang.)

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) robustness of low-voltage (LV) field-oxide devices in stacked configuration for high-voltage (HV) applications was investigated in a 0.5- \mu \textm HV silicon on insulator (SOI) process. Stacked LV field-oxide devices with different stacking numbers have been verified in a silicon chip to exhibit both a high ESD robustness and latch-up immunity for HV applications. The effect of turn-on resistance in the stacked ESD protection device on ESD current waveform under human body model (HBM) and machine model (MM) ESD tests was studied. The resistance of stacked device has a significant impact on the ESD peak current and damping waveform, especially in MM ESD test. The MM ESD level can be increased by the numbers of LV field-oxide devices in stacked configuration, but the HBM ESD level is still kept the same. The mechanism to cause such a result has been theoretically analyzed in detail in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rib fractures remain a common injury for vehicle occupants in crashes. The risk of a human sustaining rib fractures from thorax loading is highly variable, potentially due to a variability in individual factors such as material properties and geometry of the ribs and ribcage. Human body models (HBMs) with a detailed ribcage can be used as occupant substitutes to aid in the prediction of rib injury risk at the tissue level in crash analysis. To improve this capability, model parametrization can be used to represent human variability in simulation studies. The aim of this study was to identify the variations in the physical properties of the human thorax that have the most influence on rib fracture risk for the population of vehicle occupants. A total of 15 different geometrical and material factors, sourced from published literature, were varied in a parametrized SAFER HBM. Parametric sensitivity analyses were conducted for two crash configurations, frontal and near-side impacts. The results show that variability in rib cortical bone thickness, rib cortical bone material properties, and rib cross-sectional width had the greatest influence on the risk for an occupant to sustain two or more fractured ribs in both impacts. Therefore, it is recommended that these three parameters be included in rib fracture risk analysis with HBMs for the population of vehicle occupants., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Larsson, Iraeus, Holcombe and Pipkorn.)

Introduction: Chest deformation has been proposed as the best predictor of thoracic injury risk in frontal impacts. Finite Element Human Body Models (FE-HBM) can enhance the results obtained in physical crash tests with Anthropometric Test Devices (ATD) since they can be exposed to omnidirectional impacts and their geometry can be modified to reflect specific population groups. This study aims to assess the sensitivity of two thoracic injury risk criteria (PC Score and Cmax) to several personalization techniques of FE-HBMs. Methods: Three 30° nearside oblique sled tests were reproduced using the SAFER HBM v8 and three personalization techniques were applied to this model to evaluate the influence on the risk of thoracic injuries. First, the overall mass of the model was adjusted to represent the weight of the subjects. Second, the model anthropometry and mass were modified to represent the characteristics of the post-mortem human subjects (PMHS). Finally, the spine alignment of the model was adapted to the PMHS posture at t = 0 ms, to conform to the angles between spinal landmarks measured in the PMHS. The following two metrics were used to predict three or more fractured ribs (AIS3+) of the SAFER HBM v8 and the effect of personalization techniques: the maximum posterior displacement of any studied chest point (Cmax), and the sum of the upper and lower deformation of selected rib points (PC score). Results: Despite having led to statistically significant differences in the probability of AIS3+ calculations, the mass-scaled and morphed version provided, in general, lower values for injury risk than the baseline model and the postured version being the latter, which exhibited the better approximation to the PMHS tests in terms of probability of injury. Additionally, this study found that the prediction of AIS3+ chest injuries based on PC Score resulted in higher probability values than the prediction based on Cmax for the loading conditions and personalization techniques analyzed within this study. Discussion: This study could demonstrate that the personalization techniques do not lead to linear trends when they are used in combination. Furthermore, the results included here suggest that these two criteria will result in significantly different predictions if the chest is loaded more asymmetrically., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Piqueras, Iraeus, Pipkorn and López-Valdés.)

Large power MOS transistors (bigMOS) have potential electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection capabilities and are often used in actively controlled ESD clamps. In high-voltage and especially automotive applications ranging typically from 10 to 100 V operation voltage, statically triggered active ESD clamps are often used due to their false triggering safety. This paper presents novel statically triggered active ESD clamps, which rely on advanced trigger circuits optimizing the gate control of the bigMOS. With enhanced tailoring to the application requirements, the active ESD clamps substantially improve clamp area efficiency and significantly reduce ESD window requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Finite element Human Body Models are increasingly becoming vital tools for injury assessment and are expected to play an important role in virtual vehicle safety testing. With the aim of realizing models to study sex-differences seen in the injury- and fatality-risks from epidemiology, we developed models that represent an average female and an average male. The models were developed with an objective to allow tissue-based skeletal injury assessment, and thus non-skeletal organs and joints were defined with simplified characterizations to enhance computational efficiency and robustness. The model lineup comprises female and male representations of (seated) vehicle occupants and (standing) vulnerable road users, enabling the safety assessment of broader segments of the road user population. In addition, a new workflow utilized in the model development is presented. In this workflow, one model (the seated female) served as the base model while all the other models were generated as closely-linked derivative models, differing only in terms of node coordinates and mass distribution. This approach opens new possibilities to develop and maintain further models as part of the model lineup, representing different types of road users to reflect the ongoing transitions in mobility patterns (like bicyclists and e-scooter users). In this paper, we evaluate the kinetic and kinematic responses of the occupant and standing models to blunt impacts, mainly on the torso, in different directions (front, lateral, and back). The front and lateral impacts to the thorax showed responses comparable to the experiments, while the back impact varied with the location of impact (T1 and T8). Abdomen bar impact showed a stiffer load-deflection response at higher intrusions beyond 40 mm, because of simplified representation of internal organs. The lateral shoulder impact responses were also slightly stiffer, presumably from the simplified shoulder joint definition. This paper is the first in a series describing the development and validation of the new Human Body Model lineup, VIVA+. With the inclusion of an average-sized female model as a standard model in the lineup, we seek to foster an equitable injury evaluation in future virtual safety assessments., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 John, Klug, Kranjec, Svenning and Iraeus.)

The ESD robustness of GaN-on-Si Schottky diodes is investigated using on-wafer HBM and TLP. Both forward and reverse diode operation modes are analyzed as a function of device geometry, which strongly impact the corresponding failure mechanism. In forward mode, the anode-to-cathode length reduction and the total device width increase are beneficial for ESD robustness; however, in reverse mode, the ESD robustness does not depend on the total device width and saturates at around 400 V for medium and long anode-to-cathode lengths. The corresponding failure mechanisms are respectively attributed to the current distribution and Si substrate breakdown under forward and reverse mode ESD stresses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection structures in the GaAs technology are commonly constructed using enhancement-mode single-gate (SG) pseudomorphic high-electron mobility transistor (pHEMT) devices. This paper develops an improved ESD protection clamp based on a novel multigate pHEMT. With approximately the same layout area, the proposed ESD protection clamp can carry an ESD current three times higher than the conventional SG pHEMT clamp under the human body model stress. Moreover, the new ESD clamp shows promising results when characterized under the charged device model stress. The parasitic capacitance of the new ESD clamp is also measured to assess its suitability for high-frequency ESD applications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The off-state degradation of n-channel laterally diffused metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) silicon-controlled-rectifier electrostatic-discharge (ESD) devices for high-voltage applications in standard low-voltage complementary MOS technology is studied. Based on experimental data and technology computer-aided design simulations, impact ionization induced by conduction-band electrons tunneling from an \n^+ poly-Si gate to an n-well is identified to be the driving force of device degradation. Device optimization is proposed, which improves both off-state and ESD reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel low-capacitance low-voltage triggered silicon-controlled rectifier (LC-LVTSCR) electrostatic discharge (ESD) clamp is proposed in a 0.13-\mu\ m RF process. The proposed ESD clamp meets the ESD robustness and the RF requirement. The mechanism of the proposed LC-LVTSCR is investigated by T-CAD simulations, and a method to reduce the parasitic capacitance is presented. From the measurement, it was observed that the proposed ESD clamp has approximately 50% lower parasitic capacitance compared to the conventional LVTSCR device. The proposed ESD clamp was successfully used in a 2.4-GHz RF transceiver chip. The RF chip with the new proposed LC-LVTSCR passed a human body model 1-kV and machine model 100-V ESD test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time evolution of self-heating and current filamentation are discussed in this paper for shallow-trench-isolation (STI)-type drained-enhanced n-channel metal–oxide–semiconductor (DeNMOS) devices. A deeper insight toward regenerative n-p-n action and its impact over various phases of filamentation and the final thermal runaway is presented. A modified STI-type DeNMOS device is proposed in order to achieve an improvement (\sim\!\!\2 \times) in the failure threshold (IT2) and electrostatic discharge (ESD) window (VT2). The performance and filament behavior of the standard device under charge-device-model-like ESD conditions is also presented, which is further compared with the proposed modified device. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We present experimental and simulation studies of shallow trench isolation (STI)-type drain-extended n-channel metal–oxide–semiconductor devices under human body model (HBM)-like electrostatic discharge (ESD) conditions. Physical insight toward pulse-to-pulse instability is given. Both the current (ITLP) and time evolution of various events such as junction breakdown, parasitic bipolar triggering, and the base push-out effect are discussed in detail. Differences between the 2-D and 3-D simulation (modeling) approaches are presented, and the importance of 3-D technology-computer-aided-design-based modeling is discussed. Furthermore, a deeper physical insight toward the base push-out is given, which shows significant power dissipation due of space charge build-up, which is found at the onset of self-heating in the 2-D plane. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: High electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection of GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) has been developed using a metal–oxide semiconductor (MOS) capacitor. This structure is realized by adopting various metal electrode patterns. The MOS capacitor can be implemented by extending the metal line directly from the p-type electrode to the top surface of an SiO2-capped n-GaN layer near the vicinity of the n-type electrode. By connecting a MOS capacitor in parallel with the GaN-based LED, the negative ESD strike could be significantly increased from 385 to 1075 V of human body mode (HBM). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The electrical characterization of devices and circuits regarding their electrostatic discharge (ESD) robustness is done by using several measurement tools. Transmission line pulsing (TLP) and human body model (HBM) testing are the commonly used methods. In this paper, TLP and HBM on-wafer setups are presented regarding their electrical schematics, the type of data that is obtained, and the required calibration methodologies. By using three case studies, both test methods are compared by showing their advantages and disadvantages. It is demonstrated that pulsed measurement methods like TLP testing are not always a suitable tool to fully assess the ESD performance of devices or circuits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrostatic discharge performance of advanced FinFETs shows a delicate sensitivity to device layout and to processing parameters. Both N- and P-type MOS FinFET devices are characterized in bipolar operation mode as a function of layout parameters such as gate length and fin width. The impact of well implants, selective epitaxial growth, and strain is studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel polysilicon-assisted silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) is presented and analyzed in this paper, which is fabricated in HHNEC’s 0.18 μm EEPROM process. The polysilicon-assisted SCRs take advantage of polysilicon layer to help by pass electro-static discharge (ESD) current without occupying extra layout area. TLP current-voltage ( I-V) measurement results show that given the same layout areas, robustness performance of polysilicon-assisted SCRs can be improved to 3 times of conventional MLSCR’s. Moreover, one-finger such polysilicon-assisted SCRs, which occupy only 947 μm2 layout area, can undergo 7-kV HBM ESD stress. Results further demonstrate that the S-type I-V characteristics of polysilicon-assisted SCRs are adjustable to different operating conditions by changing the device dimensions. Compared with traditional SCRs, this new SCR can bypass more ESD currents and consumes smaller IC area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection structure of high-voltage p-type silicon-controlled rectifier (HVPSCR) that is embedded into a high-voltage p-channel MOS (HVPMOS) device is proposed to greatly improve the ESD robustness of the vacuum-fluorescent-display (VFD) driver IC for automotive electronics applications. By only adding the additional n+ diffusion into the drain region of HVPMOS, the transmission-line-pulsing-measured secondary breakdown current of the output driver has been greatly improved to be greater than 6 A in a 0.5- mum high-voltage complementary MOS process. Such ESD-enhanced VFD driver IC, which can sustain human-body-model ESD stress of up to 8 kV, has been in mass production for automotive applications in cars without the latchup problem. Moreover, with device widths of 500, 600, and 800 mum, the machine-model ESD levels of the HVPSCR are as high as 1100,1300, and 1900 V, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The dependences of drift implant and layout parameters on electrostatic discharge (ESD) robustness in a 40-V CMOS process have been investigated in silicon chips. From the experimental results, the high-voltage (HV) MOSFETs without drift implant in the drain region have better transmission line pulsing (TLP)-measured secondary breakdown current (It2) and ESD robustness than those with drift implant in the drain region. Furthermore, the It2 and ESD level of HV MOSFETs can be increased as the layout spacing from the drain diffusion to polygate is increased. It was also demonstrated that a specific test structure of HV n-type silicon-controlled rectifier (HVNSCR) embedded into HV NMOS without N-drift implant in the drain region has the excellent TLP-measured It2 and ESD robustness. Moreover, due to the different current distributions in HV NMOS and HVNSCR, the dependences of the TLP-measured It2 and human-body-model ESD levels on the spacing from the drain diffusion to polygate are different. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Passing voltage levels measured from the human metal model tester are correlated with the failure current levels obtained from the transmission line pulsing (TLP) tester for electrostatic discharge protection devices fabricated in 0.18- and 0.35-\mu\m MOS technologies. Various relevant TLP parameters, including the holding voltage and on -state resistance, are accounted for in the improved correlation formula developed in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We demonstrate a new electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection structure for high-speed GaAs RF ICs. The structure is composed of small diodes and large transistors using an InGaP heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology. Its loading effect and its robustness are evaluated experimentally. The impedance of the new structure at OFF state, represented with an equivalent shunt capacitance and an equivalent shunt resistance, are 0.22 pF and 500 Ω at 10 GHz. The structure can withstand +2700-V and -2900-V human body model ESD pulses. It can clamp voltage more effectively than the conventional diode-based ESD structure. The new structure can be used to protect 10 Gb/s input/output pins of high-speed RF ICs against ESD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]