Research on the ESD characteristics of symmetric DDSCR inserted with different floating heavy dopants

—Electrostatic (ESD) protection of high-voltage chips requires a high holding voltage to prevent the latching risk. The traditional Dual-direction Slicon Controlled Rectifier (DDSCR) is a commonly used device in high-voltage ESD protection. The traditional method to increase the holding voltage (V_h) of the device involves extending its anode and cathode spacing. However, it will increase the device footprint and decrease its efficiency. To avoid using the traditional method to increase the device's holding voltage, the ESD characteristics of five symmetric DDSCR structures with different floating heavy dopants are studied. Two-dimensional device simulation, breakdown voltage, and transmission line pulse (TLP) testing were used to verify the ESD protection performance of those devices. The experimental results indicate that compared with the traditional DDSCR, the DDSCR_PN structure achieves the highest holding voltages in both forward and reverse directions, measuring 21.6 V and 27.9 V, respectively, without sacrificing its current handling capability. The intrinsic reasons for the performance of these devices are also explained in this article.