ESD Protection and Failure mechanisms in RF Technology

With the growth and performance objectives of the radio frequency (RF) applications in the semiconductor industry, electrostatic discharge (ESD) sensitivity is playing an important role as these new technologies and products become mainstream in today’s GHz electronic world. This tutorial will discuss ESD physics, devices, circuits and failure mechanisms in RF technology from early technology development to modern devices in this millennium. Failure mechanisms, latency effects, and testing techniques will also be discussed. ESD robustness and failure mechanisms of RF CMOS, Silicon Germanium, Silicon Germanium Carbon, Gallium Arsenide and RF SOI will be discussed.

Steven H. Voldman

Dr. Steven H. Voldman is an engineer/scientist as a member of the IBM Communications Research and Development Center (CRDC), reporting to IBM SRDC, and IBM T.J. Watson Research facility. He received his B.S. Eng. Sci., Univ. of Buffalo (1979), M.S.EE, MIT (1981), MIT EE (1982), M.S.Eng. Physics (1986) and a Ph.D EE (1991) Univ of VT under IBM's Resident Study Fellow program. As a reliability/device engineer, he provided work on SER Monte Carlo simulation in Bipolar ECL/MTL SRAMs, CMOS SRAMs,and 4-Mb DRAMs, MOSFET GIDL, DRAM trench physics, latchup, and ESD. Voldman has authored publications on ESD phenomenon on MOSFET scaling,CMOS technology, electrothermal simulation, Cu interconnects and low-k, magnetoresistive heads, SOI,and SiGe. Voldman is responsible for ESD protection, design, and business strategy in IBM's advanced CMOS technologies (1.0 to 0.08 µm technology), SOI, RF CMOS and Silicon Germanium technology. Voldman has served as the EOS/ESD TPC 2000, EOS/ESD Vice Chair 2001,EOS/ESD General Chairman 2002, ESD Assoc. Board of Directors 2001-2004, ESD Association Education Fellow Committee,SEMATECH Quality and Reliability Council ESD Chairman (1994-2000), IPFA Tech.Prog.Steering Comm 2001-, and ISQED TPC 2001-. He has provided ESD tutorials and workshops for the IRPS, IPFA, and ESD Symposium. Voldman is a recipient of the IBM 35th Invention Achievement Award, 85 U.S. patents and an IEEE Senior Member.