A silicon-on-insulator (SOI) gated diode and non-gated junction diode are provided.
The SOI gated diode has a PN junction at the middle region under the gate, and
which has more junction area than a normal diode. The SOI non-gated junction diode
has a PN junction at the middle region thereof, and then also has more junction
area than a normal diode. The SOI diodes of the present invention improve the protection
level offered for electrical overstress (EOS)/electrostatic discharge (ESD) due
to the low power density and heating for providing more junction area than normal
ones. The I/O ESD protection circuits, which comprise primary diodes, a first plurality
of diodes, and a second plurality of diodes, all of which are formed of the present
SOI diodes, could effectively discharge the current when there is an ESD event.
And, the ESD protection circuits, which comprise more primary diodes, could effectively
reduce the parasitic input capacitance, so that they can be used in the RF circuits
or HF circuits. The proposed gated diode and non-gated diode can be fully process-compatiable
to general partially depleted or fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator CMOS processes.
