The ICs are fabricated on the company’s  specialist H35 process.

Austriamicrosystems’ ready to use ESD protection solution maximizes the ESD tolerance of complex analog/mixed-signal System-on-Chip designs in industrial, medical, communications and automotive markets.

The new silicon-proven ESD protection cells guarantee 1 kV, 2 kV, 4 kV and 8 kV HBM (Human Body Model) ESD protection compliant with the MIL-883H, Method 3015.8, JEDEC JESD22-A114F ESD and AEC-Q100 standards, as well as protection up to 500 V according to the CDM (Charged Device Model).

Austriamicrosystems is amongst the first foundries worldwide to offer proper ESD protection up to 8 kV at 50 V and 4 kV at 120 V on a CMOS-based High-Voltage process. The move is an extension of the company’s ‘More Than Silicon’ initiative, under which its foundry service provides a package of intellectual property, cell libraries, consultancy and testing services, in addition to wafer fabrication, to help customers successfully implement advanced analog and mixed-signal circuit designs.

The newly developed periphery library with built-in ESD protection structures offers latch up-free 8 kV HBM ESD protection for maximum supply voltages of 20 V and 50 V and 4 kV HBM at 120V. Furthermore it offers a built in latch-up robustness of ±100 mA at 150 degrees Celsius according to JEDEC JESD78D, Nov. 2011. The new ESD protection cells have already been successfully used in various automotive products which easily passed the tough so-called ‘Zwickau’ test (6 kV level according to IEC 61000-4-2 contacted; 330 Ohm/150 pF).

“Proper ESD protection at both the chip and system level is one of the most important demands of our customers. Offering ready to use ESD protection solutions as part of our ‘More than Silicon‘ initiative enables us to serve our customers’ needs in designing complex analog/mixed-signal products with optimal ESD protection at the chip level,” said Thomas Riener, Senior Vice President and General Manager of austriamicrosystems' Full Service Foundry business unit. “Being among the first foundries worldwide to offer a silicon-proven ESD protection design up to 8kV with best-in-class area consumption is a clear commitment to our customers that we will continue to provide industry-leading specialty foundry products and services.”

Austriamicrosystems’ 0.35µm High-Voltage CMOS technology is the first purely CMOS based High-Voltage process that matches BCD performance and chip sizes at much lower process complexity. The technology allows the integration of 3.3 V, 5 V, 20 V, 50 V and 120 V devices on a single chip, floating logic libraries as well as a best-in-class power-on resistance. Rigorous modularity permits 100% re-use of low voltage CMOS design IP. Consequently, austriamicrosystems’ 0.35 µm High-Voltage CMOS technology is a compelling solution for fabless design houses and IDMs creating power management products, display drivers, sensor interfaces, capacitive actuators, printer and MEMS driver ICs for industrial, medical, communications or automotive markets, supporting advanced applications even in the harshest environments.

All IO cells are included in the latest analog/mixed signal high performance process design kit (HIT-Kit).

More details about the new HIT-Kit version v3.80 can be found at http://asic.austriamicrosystems.com/hitkit380