Selecting an appropriate ESD protection for discrete RF power LDMOSTs

摘要

For ESD protections of RF Power MOSTs, V_(t1) lowering by the RF signal - due to the dV/dt effect - can seriously degrade the RF performance. The use of a cascoded protection solves this problem. A new failure mechanism, related to the discharge of on-chip RF matching capacitors is presented. Adding a current limiting resistor in the protection solves this issue. Combining these solutions yields an appropriate protection for discrete RF power LDMOSTs.