To reduce or transfer the harm of ESD to the microelectronics field, it is first necessary to have a deep understanding of the relevant mechanisms.

The failure modes caused by ESD are generally divided into two types:
1. Hard failure, material damage or destruction;
2. Soft failure, temporary changes in logical functionality (potential failure, time-dependent failure).
Currently, potential failure remains the most controversial type of ESD damage. There are two views on potential failure: some people believe that potential failure is possible, but only with a very low probability of occurrence; Some people believe that the probability of ESD causing damage to semiconductor devices and immediate device failure is about 10%, so there is a potential failure rate of 90% of devices.
The factors that cause these failures can be divided into thermal failure and electrical failure. Thermal failure refers to the local generation of high currents ranging from a few amperes to tens of amperes during an ESD event. Although the duration may be several nanoseconds to several hundred nanoseconds, the large amount of heat generated can melt the local metal interconnects or cause hot spots on the chip, leading to secondary breakdown. Electrical failure refers to the electric field strength formed by the voltage applied to the gate oxide layer being greater than its dielectric strength, resulting in dielectric breakdown or surface breakdown.
Regarding the above ESD damage mechanisms, ESD protection can be carried out from three different levels:
A. Prevent the generation of static electricity from the source, reduce or even eliminate the accumulation of static electricity;
B. Off chip ESD protection refers to the use of peripheral devices to protect chips from ESD damage;
C. On chip ESD protection refers to the integration of ESD protection circuits onto chips to enhance their own protective capabilities.