Low-capacitance and fast turn-on SCR for RF ESD protection

With the smaller layout area and parasitic capacitance under the same electrostatic discharge (ESD) robustness, silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) has been used as an effective on-chip ESD protection device in radio-frequency (RF) IC. In this paper, SCR's with the waffle layout structures are studied to minimize the parasitic capacitance and the variation of the parasitic capacitance within ultra-wide band (UWB) frequencies. With the reduced parasitic capacitance and capacitance variation, the degradation on UWB RF circuit performance can be minimized. Besides, the fast turn-on design on the low-capacitance SCR without increasing the I/O loading capacitance is investigated and applied to an UWB RF power amplifier (PA). The PA co-designed with SCR in the waffle layout structure has been fabricated. Before ESD stress, the RF performances of the ESD-protected PA are as well as that of the unprotected PA. After ESD stress, the unprotected PA is seriously degraded, whereas the ESD-protected PA still keeps the performances well.