Abstract: A transistor with ballast resistor formed between the transistor drain and the drain contact is formed by masking regions of the ballast resistor to increase resistivity and thus reduce required area. The invention achieves this without introducing any additional process or masking steps. Thus the invention allows a reduction in IC die size for the same ESD requirement or allows better ESD protection for a given die size.

Abstract: A test circuit is included in an IC wafer for testing the reliability of ICs under high current stress. The test circuit includes two sensing transistors, a select transistor, and a resistor. The two ends of the resistor are coupled to two sense terminals through the two sensing transistors. One end of the resistor is also coupled to a first stress input terminal; the other end of the resistor is coupled to a second stress input terminal through the select transistor. When the test circuit is selected, the sensing and select transistors are turned on. A current path is formed between the two stress input terminals, and a voltage differential can be measured across the resistor using the two sense terminals. Row and column select circuits enable the rapid testing of many resistor sizes and configurations in an array of such test circuits.

Abstract: In a transistor fabrication process, the use of a three-step base doping technique enables the characteristics of a vertical bipolar transistor to be controllably reproduced at highly optimal values from run to run. Insulating spacers (52A) are employed in forming a self-aligned base contact zone (58B). A shallow emitter (46) is created by outdiffusion from a patterned non-monocrystalline semiconductor layer (38A) that serves as the emitter contact. The fabrication process is compatible with the largely simultaneous manufacture of an insulated-gate field-effect transistor of the lightly doped drain type.