A systematic study of ESD protection structures for RF ICs

We report the first systematic investigation of various ESD protection structures, e.g., diodes, ggNMOS, gcNMOS, ggPMOS, SCR and multi-mode SCR's in a 0.35 /spl mu/m production BiCMOS technology, for RF ICs up to 100 GHz by mixed-mode ESD simulation. Typical circuit parameters for RF ICs, e.g., parasitic resistances, capacitances, noise figures and S-parameters were studied. The comparison study suggests that compact SCR-type structures and diode strings may be solutions to RF ESD protection.