A new approach of ESD protection for millimeter wave transceivers

The Electro Static Discharge (ESD) test is required for all electronic products today. The conventional ESD protection approach is based on two reverse-biased diodes. However, for the high frequency system such as the millimeter wave communication transceivers, the conventional ESD protection circuit “kills” the performance due to the parasitic capacitance of the diodes under high frequency. This paper describes a new approach for ESD protection circuit consisting of a matched circuit that provides a low impedance path to GROUND (0V) for the low frequency signal and a power to GROUND voltage clamping circuit are used by the transceiver for additional ESD protection. As a result, the millimeter communication transceiver can achieve ESD protection without the use of the diodes.