Strategies to Cope with Plasma Charging Damage in Design and Layout Phases

Abs/mct- In this paper, strategies to cope with plasma charging damage in design and layout phases are discussed. A semi-empirical model is addressed first. With this model, a designer is able to predict the plasma charging induced yield loss of the circuit, if the antenna ratio (A!?) distribution of the circuit is available. Then a novel first order self-balancing interconnect layout design is proposed to reduce the plasma charging damage. Moreover, the temperature effect on the protection diode is discussed and a strategic diodc protection scheme for plasma charging damage is proposed. In addition to these general methods, a set of design rules is given to protect floating Metal-insulator-Metal (MIM) capacitors from plasma charging damage