Design optimal ESD protection using context-aware SPICE simulation

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is a major reliability concern for modern ICs. As designers push the boundaries of power, performance and area targets (PPA), it has become important to avoid overdesign of ESD protection circuitry. Ensuring the robustness of ICs in an ESD event by providing adequate ESD protection is proving to be a major challenge for IC designers due to factors such as shrinking of the design features, reduction in gate oxide thickness, increase in the contact and interconnect resistance and an increase in the overall design complexity. Designers must know the precise design margins provided by the ESD protection circuits. Using traditional ESD verification approaches, this is often prohibitive. To address this growing concern, Siemens has introduced a highly differentiated solution combining two best in class tools—Calibre® PERC™ and AI-accelerated Solido™ Simulation Suite—providing a performance improvement of up to 8X over traditional techniques.

What you'll learn:

• How the context-aware SPICE flow provides high-fidelity analysis through accurate simulations that capture the dynamic behavior of ESD protection circuits, reducing the risk of overdesign and ensuring optimal protection.
• How the end-to-end automation of the flow eliminates manual intervention, reducing the potential for human error and ensuring deterministic results.
• How focusing simulations on the most critical paths lets designers achieve faster turnaround times and increase overall productivity.

“As IC designs become more complex and performance-driven, traditional ESD verification approaches may no longer be sufficient. Our context-aware SPICE simulation flow offers a powerful solution that combines precision with efficiency, helping engineers optimize their ESD protection designs while maintaining high performance." – Neel Natekar

Who should read this:

• Reliability verification engineers and IC designers seeking to improve their ESD analysis flow
• IC and SoC designers interested in the latest advancements in semiconductor design