An optimal silicidation technique for electrostatic discharge protection sub-100 nm CMOS devices in VLSI circuit

In this paper we propose a silicide design consideration for electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection in nanoscale CMOS devices. According to our practical implementation, it is found that a comprehensive silicide optimization can be achieved on the gate, drain, and source sides with very few testkey designs. Our study shows that there is a high characteristic efficiency for various conditions; in particular, for optimizing the performance of sub-100 nm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor devices in system-on-a-chip era. 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.