A MOSFET power supply clamp with feedback enhanced triggering for ESD protection in advanced CMOS technologies

A novel power supply protection clamp is presented which incorporates feedback techniques to improve ESD and normal operational mode behavior. The design uses a short duration RC trigger, which enables the clamp to tolerate very fast power supply ramp rates and exhibit reduced area and leakage. The design is built in a 90 nm CMOS technology with fully salicided source/drain regions.