1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to latch-up protection device, and more particularly, to a latch-up protection device for avoiding a latch-up effect by conducting a current along an additional path.
2. Description of Related Art
Currently, complementary metal oxide silicon (COMS) technology plays a more and more important role in the integrated circuit industry. However, the parasitic circuit effect, which is also known as the latch-up effect, is often a main factor causing self-inflicted damages of IC chips. As such, processing technologies or layout technologies which are adapted for latch-up protection are then demanded for latch-up protection.
For illustration convenience, a CMOS inverter is taken as an example.
It can be learnt from
In general, transient currents or voltages existing in the circuit, i.e., when an initializing power or external voltage exceeds a normal operation range, often cause latch-ups. In order to eliminate the latch-ups during normal operation of the circuits, epitaxial wafer and retrograde well are typical processing methods employed for reducing substrate resistances and well resistances. In the layout method, it is also desirable to dispose more substrate contacts, e.g., the P+ diffusion region 124, and more well contacts, e.g., the N+ diffusion region 114, so as to reduce substrate resistances and well resistances, or introduce a guard ring to reduce a gain P of the parasitic transistor. Unfortunately, this increases the area of the layout in general.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to a latch-up protection device, which is adapted for avoiding latch-ups so as to protect a circuit for normal operation.
The present invention provides a latch-up protection device including a first transistor, a detection module, and a processing module. The first transistor includes a first source/drain coupled to a pad, a body and a second source/drain coupled to a first voltage, and a gate. The detection module is adapted for detecting a terminal voltage between the first source/drain and the second source/drain of the first transistor, and generating a first signal when the terminal voltage is greater than a trigger voltage. The processing module is coupled between the detection module and the gate of the first transistor, for conducting a logic processing to the first signal, and generating an enable signal to the gate of the first transistor to conduct the first transistor.
The present invention further provides a latch-up protection device. The latch-up protection device includes a first transistor, a second transistor, a first detection module, a second detection module, a first processing module, and a second processing module. The first transistor includes a source/drain coupled to a pad, a body, and a second source/drain coupled to a first voltage, and a gate. The second transistor includes a first source/drain coupled to the first source/drain of the first transistor, a body and a second source/drain coupled to a second voltage, and a gate. The first detection module is adapted for detecting a first terminal voltage between the first source/drain and the second source/drain of the first transistor, and generating a first signal when the first terminal voltage is greater than a trigger voltage. The second detection module is adapted for detecting a second terminal voltage between the first source/drain and the second source/drain of the second transistor, and generating a second signal when the second terminal voltage is greater than the trigger voltage. The first processing module is coupled between the first detection module and the gate of the first transistor, for conducting a logic processing to the first signal and generating a first enable signal to the gate of the first transistor to conduct the first transistor. The second processing module is coupled between the second detection module and the gate of the second transistor, for conducting a logic processing to the second signal and generating a second enable signal to the gate of the second transistor to conduct the second transistor.
The present invention instantly conduct the transistor when the terminal voltage between the first source/drain and the second source/drain of the transistor is detected greater than the trigger voltage, in which an additional path is configured for conducting the current so as to avoid excessive current flowing into the parasitic circuit and causing latch-up thereby.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
Reference will now be made in detail to the present preferred embodiments of the invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers are used in the drawings and the description to refer to the same or like parts.
Two different media, or a single medium with an interface formed by two different doping ratio can be considered as a diode during the processing and layout process, and therefore there often exists a parasitic diode DP1 parasitizing in the transistor TP1. The parasitic diode DP1 has an anode terminal and a cathode terminal respectively served by the first source/drain and the second source/drain of the transistor TP1.
When external noises are conducted to the first voltage via the pad 230, the parasitic diode DP1 is conducted with a conduction current. When the conduction current flows to a circuit of a parasitic silicon controlled rectifier (SCR), it often causes an undesired latch-up. As such, according to an embodiment of the present invention, the terminal voltage between the first source/drain and the second source/drain of the transistor TP1 is being detected by the detection module 210. When the terminal voltage is detected to be greater than the trigger voltage Vd so that the parasitic diode DP1 is forward biased, e.g., 0.7 V, the detection module 210 generates the signal SP1. The processing module 220 then conducts a logic processing to the signal SP1, and thus generating an enable signal EP1, and transmitting the enable signal EP1 to the gate of the transistor TP1 to conduct the transistor TP1. In such a way, the conducted transistor TP1 is capable of instantly conducting current, so as to prevent excessive current flowing to the parasitic circuit and causing the undesirable latch-up.
The gate and the second source/drain of the transistor TP4 are respectively coupled to the second source/drain of the transistor TP2 and the first voltage, i.e., the system voltage VDD. The gate, the first source/drain and the second source/drain of the transistor TP5 are respectively coupled to the gate of the transistor TP4, the second source/drain of the transistor TP3 and the first voltage. The gate and the second source/drain of the transistor TP6 are respectively coupled to the first voltage and the second voltage, i.e., the ground voltage VSS.
According to an aspect of the embodiment, the detection module 210 is a CMOS differential amplifier composed of a differential pair formed by the transistors TP2 and TP3 and a current mirror formed by the transistors TP4 and TP5. When a voltage difference between the gates of respectively the transistors TP2 and TP3, i.e., the terminal voltage between the first source/drain and the second source/drain of the transistor TP1, is greater than the trigger voltage Vd, the second source/drain of the transistor TP3 generates a logic high level signal SP1. The processing module 220 conducts a logic processing to the signal SP1, so as to generate the enable signal EP1 to conduct the transistor TP1.
It should be noted that although the transistor TP1 is exemplified in this embodiment with a P-type transistor, it can be complied with other components, such as an N-type transistor.
The operation of the current embodiment is similar to those discussed with reference to
The detection module 310 can be further learnt by referring to the discussion about the embodiment of
To illustrate in a manner understandable to those of ordinary skill in the art, the present invention provides another example latch-up protection device.
Because a parasitic diode D1 is configured between the first source/drain and the second source/rain of the transistor T1, when an external noise is transmitted via the pad 450 to the first voltage, the parasitic diode D1 is conducted. The conducting current then flows to the circuit of the parasitic silicon controlled rectifier (SCR), and often causes an undesired latch-up. As such, when the detection module 410 detects that the terminal voltage between the first source/drain and the second source/drain of the transistor T1 is greater than the trigger voltage Vd, a signal S1 is generated. Similarly, the detection module S2 is assigned to detect a terminal voltage between a first source/drain and a second source/drain of the transistor T2, and when this terminal voltage is greater than the trigger voltage Vd, a signal S2 is generated.
The processing module 430 is coupled between the detection module 410 and a gate of the transistor T1, and is adapted to conduct a logic processing to the signal S1, so as to generate an enable signal E1 to the gate of the transistor T1, to conduct the transistor T1. The processing module 440 is coupled between the detection module 420 and a gate of the transistor T2, and is adapted to conduct a logic processing to the signal S2, so as to generate an enable signal E2 to the gate of the transistor T2, to conduct the transistor T2. In such a way, when any of the parasitic diodes D1 and D2 is triggered, the corresponding transistor is then conducted for conducting current, so as to avoid excessive current flowing into the current of the silicon controlled rectifier and causing latch-up.
The operating principle of the detection modules 410 and 420 can be learnt by respectively referring to the embodiments shown in
Further, when the pad 450 is an output pad, the latch-up protection device 400 is also applicable as an output buffer. Referring to
In summary, it is often unavoidable to configure additional parasitic silicon controlled rectifiers (SCR) during processing and layout of transistors. When excessive current flows into the circuit of the parasitic silicon controlled rectifier, there often causes a latch-up, which often causes malfunction of the circuit or even damages to the internal components. As such, the latch-up protection device according to the embodiment of the present invention employs a detection module to detect a terminal voltage between a first source/drain and a second source/drain of a transistor, in which when the terminal voltage is found greater than a trigger voltage, the transistor is conducted so as to conduct the current to a voltage path. In such a way, latch-up can be avoided and the circuit can be protected for normal operation.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present invention covers modifications and variations of this invention provided they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.