A Novel Clamp Based ESD Protection Structure for High Power RF Ports in GaAs pHEMT Process

Author

Muthukrishnan, Swaminathan ; Hale, Cody ; Peachey, Nathaniel

Author_Institution

Wireless Components Bus. Unit, RFMD, Greensboro, NC, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

16-19 Oct. 2011

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

The article presents a novel method of protecting RF ports designed to handle high (>;30 dBm) power levels. An Enhancement mode (E-mode) pHEMT clamp consists of Field effect transistor (FET) with a resistor connected between gate and source. Our design consists of two such clamps connected in back to back configuration. The structure was connected to the Transmit (TX) port of a WiFi front end module (WiFi FEM). Transmission line pulsing (TLP) and Human Body Model (HBM) testing was used to characterize the clamp. The low capacitance (<;100 fF) along with high trigger voltage (±21 V) makes this clamp a suitable candidate for protecting high power RF ports.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; clamps; electrostatic discharge; gallium arsenide; high electron mobility transistors; wireless LAN; E-mode pHEMT clamp; GaAs; HBM testing; RF port design; TLP testing; TX port; WiFi FEM; WiFi front end module; clamp-based ESD protection structure; enhancement mode pHEMT clamp; field effect transistor; high-power RF port; human body model; pHEMT process; resistor; transmission line pulsing; transmit port; trigger voltage; Capacitance; Clamps; Electrostatic discharge; Gallium arsenide; Logic gates; PHEMTs; Radio frequency;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Compound Semiconductor Integrated Circuit Symposium (CSICS), 2011 IEEE

Conference_Location

Waikoloa, HI

ISSN

1550-8781

Print_ISBN

978-1-61284-711-5

Electronic_ISBN

1550-8781

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CSICS.2011.6062469

Filename

6062469