A new low-parasitic polysilicon SCR ESD protection structure for RF ICs

Author

Haolu Xie ; Haigang Feng ; Rouying Zhan ; Wang, A. ; Rodriguez, D. ; Rice, D.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Illinois Inst. of Technol., Chicago, IL, USA

Volume

26

Issue

2

fYear

2005

Firstpage

121

Lastpage

123

Abstract

Robust low-parasitic electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection is highly desirable for RF ICs. This letter reports design of a new low-parasitic polysilicon silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) ESD protection structure designed and implemented in a commercial 0.35-μm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The concept was verified by simulation and experiment with the results showing that the new structure has much lower parasitic capacitance (C/sub ESD/) and higher F-factor than that of other ESD protection devices. A small polysilicon SCR structure of 750-μm² all-inclusive provides a high human body model ESD protection of 3.2 kV while featuring a high F-factor of /spl sim/42 and a low C/sub ESD/ of /spl sim/92.3 fF. The new polysilicon SCR ESD protection structure seems to be an attractive solution to high-GHz RF ICs.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; electrostatic discharge; radiofrequency integrated circuits; thyristors; 0.35 micron; 3.2 kV; BiCMOS technology; ESD protection devices; ESD protection structure; SiGe; electrostatic discharge protection; low-parasitic polysilicon SCR; parasitic capacitance; radiofrequency integrated circuit; silicon controlled rectifier; BiCMOS integrated circuits; Biological system modeling; Electrostatic discharge; Germanium silicon alloys; Parasitic capacitance; Protection; Radio frequency; Robustness; Silicon germanium; Thyristors; Electrostatic discharge; F-factor; RF; electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection; low parasitic; silicon controlled rectifier (SCR);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2004.841860

Filename

1386414