Electrostatic discharge protection devices macromodelling using open-source tools

V. V. Kuznetsov, V. V. Andreev, S. A. Lomakin

Bauman Moscow State Technical University

Abstract: The semiconductor diode and grounded gate MOSFET (GGMOS) devices are commonly used as electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection element in CMOS ICs circuitry. This article presents an implementation of ESD diode and GGMOS macro models using open-source circuit simulation tools (Qucs-S and Ngspice). The proposed models could serve for the circuit simulation of the ESD event. Such simulation allows to estimate the ESD robustness of the IC at the early design stage.

Keywords: electrostatic discharge (ESD), circuit simulation, compact modelling, transmission line pulse.

DOI: 10.15514/ISPRAS-2025-37(3)-8