ESD protection design for fully integrated CMOS RF power amplifiers with waffle-structured SCR

Waffle-structured SCR (silicon-controlled rectifier) has been studied as an effective on-chip ESD (electrostatic discharge) protection device for CMOS RF (radio-frequency) circuits. In this work, a novel on-chip ESD protection strategy using the waffle-structured SCR is proposed and co-designed with a CMOS UWB (ultra-wideband) PA (power amplifier). Before ESD stress, the RF performances of the ESD-protected PA have been demonstrated to be as well as that of the unprotected PA. After ESD stress, the unprotected PA was seriously degraded, whereas the ESD-protected PA was keeping the performances well.