Importance

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Abstract

A whole-chip Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) protection circuit and protection method are provided. The whole-chip ESD protection circuit comprises: input/output (I/O) units located between a power line and a grounding wire; a power clamp circuit located between the power line and the grounding wire and connected to the I/O units, any power clamp circuit being shared by multiple I/O units; and an ESD trigger circuit located between the power line and the grounding wire. The ESD trigger circuit generates an ESD trigger signal when an ESD events occurs and transmits the ESD trigger signal to the power clamp circuit and each I/O unit so that the power clamp circuit and each I/O unit form a current discharge path from the power line to the grounding wire respectively. Compared with the prior art, the present invention fully utilizes an existing driving transistor in the I/O unit to realize efficient whole-chip ESD protection and avoids adding too many power clamp circuits in the whole chip with regard to ESD, thereby reducing the overall size of the chip and lowering the cost.

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First Claim