Understanding the failure mechanisms of protection diodes during system level ESD : towards repetitive stresses robustness

— In electronic systems the ever-increasing level of integration is paced by component scaling. Consequently, system level protection improvements in electrostatic discharge (ESD) reliability during a device's lifetime is mandatory. To this end we have investigated bidirectional system level ESD protection diodes that have been subjected to repetitive HMM stresses. Our goal was to develop robust ESD components by understanding the physical and electrical behaviors of components after multiple ESD surges. In this paper, three ESD-induced failure modes of protection devices are demonstrated and analyzed in terms of severity: charge trapping in the silicon-oxide interface, metallic diffusion towards the contacts and melted filaments in the silicon bulk at the junction periphery.