Date: 06/05/2012

austriamicrosystems' 0.35µm HV CMOS fab foundry service offers 8KV ESD protection

austriamicrosystems' has extended its 0.35µm High-Voltage CMOS fabrication service, offering Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) protection up to 8kV at 50V and up to 4kV at 120V operating voltage in Integrated Circuits (ICs) fabricated on its specialist H35 process.

The new silicon-proven ESD protection cells guarantee 1kV, 2kV, 4kV and 8kV HBM (Human Body Model) ESD protection compliant with the MIL-883H, Method 3015.8, JEDEC JESD22-A114F ESD and AEC-Q100 standards, as well as protection up to 500V according to the CDM (Charged Device Model).

austriamicrosystems claims its is amongst the first foundries worldwide to offer proper ESD protection up to 8kV at 50V and 4kV at 120V on a CMOS-based High-Voltage process.

The newly developed periphery library with built-in ESD protection structures offers latch up-free 8kV HBM ESD protection for maximum supply voltages of 20V and 50V and 4kV HBM at 120V. Furthermore it offers a built in latch-up robustness of ±100mA at 150 degrees Celsius according to JEDEC JESD78D, Nov. 2011. The new ESD protection cells have already been successfully used in various automotive products which easily passed the very tough so-called "Zwickau" test (6kV level according to IEC 61000-4-2 contacted; 330 Ohm/150 pF), as per austriamicrosystems.

"Proper ESD protection at both the chip and system level is one of the most important demands of our customers. Offering ready to use ESD protection solutions as part of our 'More than Silicon' initiative enables us to serve our customers' needs in designing complex analog/mixed-signal products with optimal ESD protection at the chip level" says Thomas Riener, Senior Vice President and General Manager of austriamicrosystems' Full Service Foundry business unit. "Being among the first foundries worldwide to offer a silicon-proven ESD protection design up to 8kV with best-in-class area consumption is a clear commitment to our customers that we will continue to provide industry-leading specialty foundry products and services."