[SOLVED] how to do ESD research for master's thesis

[prcken]

hi, everybody, my advisor wants me to tackle the ESD problem for my master's thesis, but it's so tough for me to carry on now, i have no experience in ESD and i have no project to join. that is i am working alone. my advisor said:" Oh, there are lots of chips can't survive the 2kV HBM stardand in our Corp., you can do some research on them and can write a wonderful thesis, but besides me, there are only a ZAPMASTER and some chips, and most of the chips are fabricated in 0.6um /0.8um CMOS process, the ESD structure is so simple, and i don't know how to find somethig from the layout, and how to do some experiments.
so confused, i am at Wuxi China
hope some brothers can help me to device a scheme for my thesis or give me a hint , i don't want to sit there all day reading papers and i am so worried about the data for finishing my thesis. really appreciate!

Khan

Added after 13 minutes:

i have collected a lot related the ESD
books: On-Chip ESD protection for Integrated Circiuts; (eWiley) ESD in Silicon Integrated Circuits (2nd Ed.); ESD Protection in CMOS ICs;
Basic ESD and I/O Design
papers from Amerasekera,Duvvury,Voldman and IEEE, Microelectronics Reliability.......so many
the key thing is how to do something by myself, how to simulate, i only have the software:Tsurpem4 and medici do 2D analysis.......
help~~~~~~~~

 

[zwei78]

I think you can read these books and papers , and layout is very import, many foundry will supply ESD design rule, you can read them.

 

[rfzheng]

research on ESD need a lot of device acknowledge, and especially power device. and you still have to understand some circuit knowledge. right now normally use ESD structure is very common. so you are hard to have some new findings in this field. the most common ly use ESD including diode and ggnmos ,gspmos , the scr are nearly not used in common chips, except in the RF or high speed chips. so if you want to reseach this field and do a master thesis. it is a little hard for your final paper.

 

[prcken]

I think you can read these books and papers , and layout is very import, many foundry will supply ESD design rule, you can read them.

but i think it's too hard to get the ESD design rule provided by the foundry as a study purpose.
even in the Corp., it's hard to get the shcematic and layout of the on-chip ESD protection structure from the other Depart. makes me so upset

Added after 3 minutes:

research on ESD need a lot of device acknowledge, and especially power device. and you still have to understand some circuit knowledge. right now normally use ESD structure is very common. so you are hard to have some new findings in this field. the most common ly use ESD including diode and ggnmos ,gspmos , the scr are nearly not used in common chips, except in the RF or high speed chips. so if you want to reseach this field and do a master thesis. it is a little hard for your final paper.

you are absolutely right
what can i do