A novel power-clamp assisted complementary MOSFET for robust ESD protection

A novel power-clamp assisted complementary MOSFET (PCACMOS), modified from traditional gate-coupled complementary MOSFET (GCCMOS), is proposed for high robust ESD (Electrostatic discharge) protection application. The power-clamp achieves by RC-NMOS and designs by Spice simulation. The comprehensive performance of the protection schemes are evaluated by the figure of merit (FOM). Compared with traditional gate-coupled MOSFET (GCCMOS) protection scheme, the power-clamp assisted complementary MOSFET (PCACMOS) protection scheme has a similar turn-on speed but higher FOM.