High-Q Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) Protection Devices for Use at Radio Frequency (RF) and Broad-band I/O Pins

摘要

Radio frequency and broad-band I/O circuit designers may compensate for the capacitance of electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection elements by designing them into tuned resonators or matched filters, thereby requiring that the protection device capacitance have a high quality factor (Q). In this paper, we explore several ESD protection device options, focusing on improvement in Q. We show that surrounding a grounded-gate nMOS transistor with a deep trench increases its Q, while adding a trigger circuit decreases it. We also show that SiGe diodes are preferred over SiGe n-p-n devices. A detailed analysis of experimental results is provided.