ESD protection methodology on system level and concept on device level

Electronic systems need to be protected against electrostatic discharge (ESD) events. One way is designing special ESD protection devices which are able to offer a very effective protection against strong system level ESD events. Nevertheless the electronic parts themselves have to have an inherent ESD robustness against ESD events. The first part of the paper describes a methodology used for effective system level protection at the ex-ample of the TLH5018 an advanced low noise amplifier (ALNA) for AM/FM/DAB signals. The ALNA system needs to be protected against electrostatic system level discharges. Selecting the proper ESD protection used to be a trial-and-error process. Using the so-called System-efficient ESD Design (SEED) methodology, it is possible to accurately predict the ESD performance of the ALNA protection during a system level test. Application of the SEED methodology allows to select a first-time-right combination of protection and ASIC. The second part de-scribes a concept to model the behavior of discrete devices with complex layout geometry during ESD events. The aim is to eliminate ESD weaknesses due to design and process aspects.