Abstract: An electrostatic discharge protection network that uses triple well semiconductor devices either singularly or in a series configuration. The semiconductor devices are preferably in diode junction type configuration.

Abstract: An electrostatic discharge protection network that uses triple well semiconductor devices either singularly or in a series configuration. The semiconductor devices are preferably in diode junction type configuration.

Abstract: An electrostatic discharge protection network that uses triple well semiconductor devices either singularly or in a series configuration. The semiconductor devices are preferably in diode junction type configuration. A control network can be used to control the biasing when the semiconductor devices are used in a series configuration.

Abstract: An electrostatic discharge protection network that uses triple well semiconductor devices either singularly or in a series configuration. The semiconductor devices are preferably in diode junction type configuration. A control network can be used to control the biasing when the semiconductor devices are used in a series configuration.

Abstract: An ASIC book comprising a gate-array format of ESD components is provided. A customized, optimized and tuned ESD network can be constructed from the ASIC book. Novel ESD circuitry having inter-rail ESD circuitry and single-rail ESD circuitry can be constructed. The inter-rail ESD circuitry is scaleable and comprises one or more diode strings for interconnecting a pair of power rails. The ESD trigger voltage for a diode string is set by the number of diodes within the customized diode string and preferably a sufficient number of diodes are provided within each diode string for power-up and power-down sequence independence. The single-rail ESD circuitry is connected to a level-shifter and may comprise an RC discriminator comprising a customizable plurality of NFET transistors connected in series. The RC discriminator may be connected to a clamping transistor via a buffering circuit, such as an inverter stage, that isolates the gate capacitance of the clamping transistor from the RC discriminator.

Abstract: A method for automatically generating a custom ESD network for an integrated circuit is provided. When a user provides chip size and chip capacitance for the integrated circuit, components for the customized ESD network are automatically selected based on the user-provided chip size and chip capacitance and the adequacy of the ESD behavior of an ESD network employing the selected components is evaluated.

Abstract: A novel ESD protection circuit for multiple power supplies, having both inventive inter-rail ESD circuitry and inventive single-rail ESD circuitry. The inter-rail ESD circuitry is scaleable and comprises one or more diode strings for interconnecting a pair of power rails. The ESD trigger voltage for a diode string is set by the number of diodes within the diode string and preferably a sufficient number of diodes are provided within each diode string for power-up and power-down sequence independence. The single-rail ESD circuitry is connected to a level-shifter and may comprise an RC discriminator comprising two NFET transistors connected in series. The RC discriminator may be connected to a clamping transistor via a buffering circuit, such as an inverter stage, that isolates the gate capacitance of the clamping transistor from the RC discriminator so that the RC characteristics of the RC discriminator are unaffected by the choice of the clamping transistor.