On-chip ESD protection design for radio-frequency power amplifier with large-swing-tolerance consideration

To effectively protect the radio-frequency (RF) integrated circuits in nanoscale CMOS technology from electrostatic discharge (ESD) damages, the on-chip ESD protection circuits must be added at the pads that may be stressed by ESD. In this paper, a large-swing-tolerant ESD protection circuit is presented to protect the gigahertz large-swing power amplifier (PA). The proposed ESD protection circuit of diode string with embedded silicon-controlled rectifier (DSSCR) has been designed, fabricated, and verified in silicon chip. With the better RF performances and ESD robustness, the DSSCR can be further applied to the large-swing PA.