With improvement in electronic technology shrinking, electronic components are increasingly becoming sensitive to ElectroStatic Discharge (ESD). Nowadays, the reliability of integrated circuits in the manufacturing field are guaranteed by a set of standards that define levels of robustness. Nevertheless the protection strategies implemented in integrated circuits, designed to meet these standards, are not always enough to ensure the robustness of the components in their final application. The new reliability problems are not well understood, given the complexity of the phenomena involved in real systems in operation. Taking into account these facts, we can question the effectiveness of the strategies used to protect against " classical ESD " and system-type stresses. All the work presented in this thesis aims to improve the robustness with respect to these new requirements, in the case study of analog components dedicated to portable applications (telephony, multimedia). Starting from a concrete case, for which there is a large difference in the system ESD robustness between the biased and unbiased product, we will present the various results of analysis (failure analysis, electrical characterization by impulse like TLP VFTLP, SPICE-type simulations) that led us to the proposal of an integrated security solution that meets the requirements.
