Simulation of Current Filament During Electrostatic Discharge Pulse

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This project demonstrates a transmission line pulse (TLP) simulation of a threedimensional bipolar structure. During electrostatic discharge (ESD) pulses, inhomogeneous current flow can often be observed. Simulations at higher temperatures demand that the physical models are calibrated up to these temperatures. This has been performed for the University of Bologna mobility and avalanche models, which are used here. Furthermore, the project shows the use of the Sentaurus Device postprocessing tool APEX, which extracts data that can be compared directly to transient interferometric mapping (TIM) characterization data.

Total current density at surface of device at four different times.

Temperature distribution at surface of device at same four different times.

APEX scan along t-axis at coordinates (x, y) = (5 µm, 9 µm). It can be seen that the phase shift shows a memory effect, that is, although the dissipated power is constant, the phase shift increases continuously because the temperature rises.