A 5.8-GHz GaAs based HBT amplifier with novel RF ESD protection

In this paper, a 5.8-GHz amplifier with novel RF electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection is proposed in GaAs 2-µm HBT process. The amplifier incorporates with the ESD devices to form a band pass filter (BPF) structure with good impedance matching for RF ESD protection. In the mean while, an amplifier without ESD protection and another with conventional ESD protection are fabricated in parallel for comparison. This proposed ESD-protected amplifier features much higher ESD robustness and better RF performance than the conventional design. The RF ESD protection circuit has eight discharging paths which sustains more than 19.8-kV voltage level of human body model (HBM) and 7-kV of machine model (MM).