Could you please explain me what is the differences between supply clamps and power clamps? are both same? if not how they are different? i know supply clamp will protect the input lines or circuit by sending esd event to vdd using primary or secondary clamps and from vdd to gnd using ggnmos or BigFETs . Even power clamps will protect the power lines like whatever esd event is occurred or arrived it will send to gnd using either snapback or active devices. So now both are doing same sending esd event from vdd to gnd. then how to differentiate. Im not getting this. could you please help me to understand this?
Good question. While I am far from being an expert on ESD and it's been a long time since I've read through specs of I/O libraries to understand how to use the clamps, I think the difference between the two types of clamps you are seeing is as follows: 1) I/O Clamps - connect the input signal to VDD/GND through protection diodes and resistors, as explained and demonstrated in the lecture. 2) Supply Clamps - connect VDD and GND through a protection diode. One explanation I found for such a circuit is covered in "ESD Protection Device and Circuit Design for Advanced CMOS Technologies" by Semenov, Sarbishaei and Sachdev, showing a potential ESD path between VDD and GND through a circuit that is protected by such a clamp. That said, there are many other types of ESD circuits that have been proposed and may be found in various libraries. So I'm not certain that this is the two categories of clamps that you are seeing. If you figure this out, please update the viewers by replying to this comment.
Could you please explain me what is the differences between supply clamps and power clamps? are both same? if not how they are different? i know supply clamp will protect the input lines or circuit by sending esd event to vdd using primary or secondary clamps and from vdd to gnd using ggnmos or BigFETs . Even power clamps will protect the power lines like whatever esd event is occurred or arrived it will send to gnd using either snapback or active devices. So now both are doing same sending esd event from vdd to gnd. then how to differentiate. Im not getting this. could you please help me to understand this?
Good question.
While I am far from being an expert on ESD and it's been a long time since I've read through specs of I/O libraries to understand how to use the clamps, I think the difference between the two types of clamps you are seeing is as follows:
1) I/O Clamps - connect the input signal to VDD/GND through protection diodes and resistors, as explained and demonstrated in the lecture.
2) Supply Clamps - connect VDD and GND through a protection diode. One explanation I found for such a circuit is covered in "ESD Protection Device and Circuit Design for Advanced CMOS Technologies" by Semenov, Sarbishaei and Sachdev, showing a potential ESD path between VDD and GND through a circuit that is protected by such a clamp.
That said, there are many other types of ESD circuits that have been proposed and may be found in various libraries. So I'm not certain that this is the two categories of clamps that you are seeing. If you figure this out, please update the viewers by replying to this comment.