Method of optimizing esd protection for an ic, an esd protection optimizer and an esd protection optimization system

A method of optimizing electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection for an integrated circuit (IC), comprising:

• identifying ESD cells and circuitry of said IC;
• calculating a resistance value to couple in series with said circuitry based on protection cell physical attributes associated with said identified ESD cells and circuitry physical attributes associated with said identified circuitry;
• and
• providing said calculated resistance value to couple in series with said identified circuitry.

An electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection optimization system for integrated circuits (ICs) comprising:

• a predefined ESD protection element database configured to store technology-independent topologies of ESD protection elements wherein each of said topologies has a defined set of attributes for each pair of terminals thereof;
• an ESD protection element attributes database configured to store technology-dependent protection cell physical attributes associated with said ESD protection elements;
• a predefined circuit database configured to store technology-independent topologies of circuitry wherein each of said topologies has a defined set of attributes for each pair of terminals thereof;
• a circuit attributes database configured to store technology-dependent circuitry physical attributes associated with said circuitry topologies;
• and
• an ESD protection optimizer, including:
• a circuit analyzer configured to identify ESD cells and circuitry of said IC by comparing component information of said IC with said topologies of said predefined ESD protection elements and said predefined circuit topologies, and
• an ESD resistance determiner configured to calculate a resistance value to place in series with said circuitry, said resistance value based on said protection cell physical attributes associated with said identified ESD cells and said circuitry physical attributes associated with said identified circuitry.