Treffer: Electrostatic Discharge Protection and Latch-Up Design and Methodologies for ASIC Development

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) has been an issue in devices, circuits, and systems for electronics for many decades, as early as the 1970s, and continued to be an issue until today. In this chapter, the issue of ESD protection design and methods for Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) will be discussed. The chapter will discuss ESD design in an ASIC environment. The discussion will address ESD design layout, design rules and practices, and the method of integration of ESD protection into the ASIC design practice. Part of the methodology is the floor planning of an ASIC design, I/O library, integration of ESD into I/O cells, power distribution, and placement of power pads, in both array and peripheral design methodologies. As part of the ASIC I/O design, guard rings and latch-up interactions will be highlighted.