EDA Solutions, 58 Botley Road, Park Gate, Southampton, SO31 1BB, UK T: +44 (0) 1489 564253 F: +44(0) 1489 557367 E: info@eda-solutions.com W: www.eda-solutions.com Just one electrostatic discharge (ESD) can kill an integrated circuit (IC) and this has become a major headache for manufacturers as they try to shrink their designs to increase performance and reduce costs. Rapid advances in deep submicron technology have led to dramatic reductions in the amount of die space needed for core circuitry. But reductions in IC size are being held back by the size of the I/O ring around the core. The threat from ESD is always there, and the risk of an IC being destroyed by a discharge increases with the reduction in transistor size. So, IC manufacturers are forced to devote space in the

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