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High signal voltage tolerance

Sofics technology has been applied for many different applications. Some applications need I/O circuits and ESD protection that can tolerate a higher voltage.

ICs manufactured on advanced nodes like FinFET processes only support I/Os up to 1.8V. However, for communication with legacy chips higher voltages are requirded like 3.3V or even 5V.

Another reason for higher voltage tolerance comes from the requirement to power the chips from USB or batteries at 4.5V – 5V.

Sometimes system makers demand high EOS and surge tolerance voltages, beyond the GPIO capabilities.

Sofics has delivered unique ESD protection clamps for many different projects when the customer designed the functional I/O circuit. More recently, Sofics has also designed several functional I/O circuits with higher voltage capabilities.

Examples for ESD protection clamps on different process nodes are shown below. This is just a subset of cells proven on silicon and in mass production.

Cells can be ported to other processes. The actual numbers (ESD robustness, leakage, capacitance, area) may vary slightly, also depending on the circuit to be protected, process, voltage level.

ProcessPadESD robustnessLeakage
TSMC 180nm 5V rail> 8 kV HBM< 5 nA
TSMC 180nm5V I/O> 8 kV HBM< 5 nA
TSMC 180nm7V I/O> 2 kV HBM< 50 nA
TowerSemi 350nm4.5V rail> 8 kV HBM< 100 nA
ProcessPadESD robustnessLeakage
TSMC 130nm 5V rail> 3 kV HBM< 1 nA
TSMC 130nm5V I/O> 3 kV HBM< 1 nA
TSMC 130nm7V I/O> 4 kV HBM< 1 nA
TSMC 65nm5V I/O OVT> 4 kV HBM< 1 nA
TSMC 65nm5V I/O> 4 kV HBM< 100 nA
ProcessPadESD robustnessLeakage
TSMC 40nm 5V rail> 2 kV HBM< 10 nA
TSMC 40nm5V I/O> 2 kV HBM< 10 nA
TSMC 28nm3.9V I/O> 2 kV HBM< 50 nA
TSMC 28nm5.5V I/O> 2 kV HBM< 400 nA
TSMC 28nm6.5V I/O> 2 kV HBM< 400 nA
TSMC 28nm12V I/O> 2 kV HBM< 40 nA
UMC 28nm8.6V I/O> 200 V HBM< 1 uA
ProcessPadESD robustnessLeakage
TSMC 16nm 5V rail> 1 kV HBM< 30 nA
TSMC 16nm5V I/O> 1 kV HBM< 30 nA
TSMC 12nm3.3V rail> 3 kV HBM< 60 nA
TSMC 12nm5V I/O> 4 kV HBM< 3 uA
TSMC 7nm3.3V rail> 2 kV HBM< 1.5 uA
TSMC 5nm1.8V rail> 1 kV HBM< 500 pA
ProcessPadESD robustnessLeakage
GF 22FDX3.3V rail> 5 kV HBM< 10 pA
GF 22FDX3.3V I/O> 2 kV HBM< 500 pA
GF 22FDX5V rail> 4 kV HBM< 10 nA

Blog articles about high voltage tolerance
Blog article “3 approaches to handle EOS requirements
Blog article “Sofics clipping circuit
Press release about 3.3V capable I/O in 28nm