TY - JOUR
T1 - Low-capaeitance and fast turn-on SCR for RF ESD protection
AU - Lin, Chun Yu
AU - Ker, Ming Dou
AU - Meng, Guo Xuan
PY - 2008/8
Y1 - 2008/8
N2 - With the smaller layout area and parasitic capacitance under the same electrostatic discharge (ESD) robustness, silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) has been used as an effective on-chip ESD protection device in radio-frequency (RF) IC. In this paper, SCR's with the waffle layout structures are studied to minimize the parasitic capacitance and the variation of the parasitic capacitance within ultra-wide band (UWB) frequencies. With the reduced parasitic capacitance and capacitance variation, the degradation on UWB RF circuit performance can be minimized. Besides, the fast turn-on design on the low-capacitance SCR without increasing the I/O loading capacitance is investigated and applied to an UWB RF power amplifier (PA). The PA co-designed with SCR in the waffle layout structure has been fabricated. Before ESD stress, the RF performances of the ESD-protected PA are as well as that of the unprotected PA. After ESD stress, the unprotected PA is seriously degraded, whereas the ESD-protected PA still keeps the performances well.
AB - With the smaller layout area and parasitic capacitance under the same electrostatic discharge (ESD) robustness, silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) has been used as an effective on-chip ESD protection device in radio-frequency (RF) IC. In this paper, SCR's with the waffle layout structures are studied to minimize the parasitic capacitance and the variation of the parasitic capacitance within ultra-wide band (UWB) frequencies. With the reduced parasitic capacitance and capacitance variation, the degradation on UWB RF circuit performance can be minimized. Besides, the fast turn-on design on the low-capacitance SCR without increasing the I/O loading capacitance is investigated and applied to an UWB RF power amplifier (PA). The PA co-designed with SCR in the waffle layout structure has been fabricated. Before ESD stress, the RF performances of the ESD-protected PA are as well as that of the unprotected PA. After ESD stress, the unprotected PA is seriously degraded, whereas the ESD-protected PA still keeps the performances well.
KW - Electrostatic discharge (ESD)
KW - Low capacitance (low-C)
KW - Poweramplifier (PA)
KW - Radio-frequency (RF)
KW - Silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR)
KW - Waffle layout
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U2 - 10.1093/ietele/e91-c.8.1321
DO - 10.1093/ietele/e91-c.8.1321
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77953253224
SN - 0916-8524
VL - E91-C
SP - 1321
EP - 1330
JO - IEICE Transactions on Electronics
JF - IEICE Transactions on Electronics
IS - 8
ER -