Circuit and method for ESD protection
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsYi-Hsun Wu, Jian-Hsing Lee
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Abstract
A sensor for electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection includes a voltage divider and a device coupled thereto. The sensor is coupled to an input terminal of the sensor, wherein a voltage drop occurs across the voltage divider and a high state voltage is generated at an output terminal of the sensor when an ESD voltage pulse is applied to the input terminal of the sensor. The device maintains the high state voltage at the output terminal of the sensor, while the ESD voltage pulse is applied to the input terminal of the sensor. A method for ESD protection includes the step of pulling down a gate terminal of a MOS transistor of an ESD circuit to a low state voltage when an ESD pulse is sensed.
Claims8
A circuit for electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection, comprising:
- an ESD protection circuit having a stack of cascaded NMOS transistors configured to discharge an ESD pulse;
- a sensor that senses the ESD pulse and generates a high state voltage at an output terminal of the sensor in response to the ESD pulse;
- and
- an inverter coupled to the output terminal of the sensor and the ESD circuit, wherein the sensor applies the high state voltage to an input terminal of the inverter,
- wherein an input to the stack of cascaded NMOS transistors of the ESD protection circuit is pulled down to a low state voltage by an output voltage of the inverter when the sensor senses the ESD pulse.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.