A review of latchup and electrostatic discharge (ESD) in BiCMOS RF silicon germanium technologies: Part I-ESD

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) continues to be a semiconductor quality and reliability area of interest as semiconductor components are reduced to smaller dimensions. The combination of scaling, design integration, circuit performance objectives, new applications, and the evolving system environments, ESD robustness will continue to be a technology concern. With the transition from silicon bipolar junction transistor to modern BiCMOS silicon germanium (SiGe) semiconductor technologies, new semiconductor process and integration issues have evolved which influence both device performance and ESD protection. Additionally, the issues of low cost, low power and radio frequency (RF) GHz performance objectives has lead to both revolutionary as well as derivative technologies; these have opened new doors for discovery, development and research in the area of on-chip ESD protection and design. With the growth of interest of ESD in RF technology, new innovations and inventions are occurring at a rapid pace. In this paper, we will provide an introductory review of silicon germanium technology and ESD.