Method to evaluate Cable Discharge Event (CDE) reliability of integrated circuits in CMOS technology

Abstract

Cable Discharge Event (CDE) has been the main cause which damages the Ethernet interface in field applications. The transmission line pulsing (TLP) system has been the most popular method to observe electric characteristics of the device under human-body-model (HBM) electrostatic discharge (ESD) stress. In this work, the long-pulse transmission line pulsing (LP-TLP) system is proposed to simulate CDE reliability of the Ethernet integrated circuits, and the results are compared with the conventional 100-ns TLP system. The experimental results have shown that the CDE robustness of NMOS device in a 0.25-mu m CMOS technology is worse than its HBMESD robustness.