Variable voltage threshold ESD protection

Abstract

An ESD protective circuit is described which has a very low, variable turn-on threshold by using a shunting MOSFET which has an isolated substrate/body which is connected to an electrode that is provided in addition to the gate, source and drain electrodes. A variable gate voltage which is preferably a function of an ESD voltage is used to trigger the MOSFET into conduction. A voltage is applied to the substrate/body of the MOSFET to lower the turn-on voltage. The voltage on the substrate allows the turn-on voltage to be adjusted for different applications and/or to be adjusted dynamically to respond to events. The substrate voltage is also preferably derived from the ESD voltage. Preferably the MOSFET has an epitaxial region with an electrode and a subcollector with an electrode. The epitaxial region electrode can be connected to the gate to improve the turn-on performance. The subcollector electrode can be connected to the substrate/body electrode to contribute to lowering the turn-on voltage. A preferred embodiment uses an ESD protective device according to the invention to protect a magnetic transducer in a data storage system.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.