Rosenbaum to create system-efficient ESD design

CSL Professor Elyse Rosenbaum recently received a one-year, $148,000 grant from Samsung’s Global Research Outreach Program (GRO) to research system-efficient ESD design.

ESD, or electrostatic discharge, can be harmful to integrated circuits, and is therefore a reliability hazard. “We know how to protect an integrated circuit by itself during manufacturing and shipping,” Rosenbaum said. However, she said there is yet to be a design methodology for efficiently protecting integrated circuits in a system, such as a smartphone, computer or car.

The key difference between a single integrated circuit and a system is that in the latter power is applied, and so the circuit’s response to ESD is different, said Rosenbaum, a professor of electrical and computer engineering.

“Your typical integrated circuit designer … would say it is the responsibility of the system designer to prevent any energy or noise associated with a static discharge from reaching the integrated circuits inside the product,” Rosenbaum said. However, system designers want the integrated circuits to operate correctly and survive even if some of this noise and energy reaches them. “And that’s a really big controversy right now,” she said.

This project was accepted under GRO’s research theme called “Process and Design for Product Development.” This highly competitive international program selected a total of 86 project proposals from around that world that fit into its 15 research themes.

Rosenbaum is part of the circuits group at CSL.