A new ESD-aware power amplifier design method

Abstract

This paper presents a new ESD-aware power amplifier (PA) design method, featuring S-parameter modeling and output impedance re-matching techniques, to achieve ESD+PA full-chip design optimization. The new method is verified using a 5 kV ESD-protected 2.4 GHz PA circuit designed and implemented in a 0.18 mum RFCMOS technology. Experiment shows substantial performance degradation of PA due to ESD effect, which can be recovered by using the new ESD-aware ESD design method.