Abstract
Electrostatic discharge (ESD) can be considered as one of the main reliability risks of modern electronic systems which causes failure of semiconductor devices by an over-current effect. One of the dominant failure mechanisms during an ESD event is thermal runaway caused by an avalanche breakdown leading to an inhomogeneous current flow and a current filament. Here, the formation and motion of current filaments are investigated on special test structures of silicon based PIN diodes using technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulations and transmission line pulse (TLP) measurements. In thin structures a constriction of the filament occurs as well as the formation of multiple filaments is observed.