A Fully Integrated 7.3 kV HBM ESD-Protected Transformer-Based 4.5–6 GHz CMOS LNA
- 27 January 2009
- journal article
- Published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits
- Vol. 44 (2) , 344-353
- https://doi.org/10.1109/jssc.2008.2010828
Abstract
The increasing mask costs of modern scaled CMOS makes silicon area precious. Meanwhile, the lowering oxide thickness seriously toughens ESD protection of RF circuits, pushing towards area-demanding inductor-based ESD protection techniques. This paper presents a transformer-based ESD protection technique for inductor-based LNAs. With no area penalty, an ESD protection level of 4.5 kV HBM is achieved. Introducing two-stage protection increases the robustness up to 7.3 kV, maintaining excellent RF performance. Further it extends the TLP protection level from 3.2 to 5 A. A noise figure of 2.6 dB is achieved with a power gain of 14.8 dB, while consuming 6.5 mW. The technique serves as a solution for low-area highly protected LNAs in deep-submicron CMOS.Keywords
This publication has 12 references indexed in Scilit:
- A 2.4-GHz Fully Integrated ESD-Protected Low-Noise Amplifier in 130-nm PD SOI CMOS TechnologyIEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 2007
- Calibrated wafer-level HBM measurements for quasi-static and transient device analysisPublished by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ,2007
- A 5 kV HBM transformer-based ESD protected 5-6 GHz LNAPublished by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ,2007
- A High Gain and Low Supply Voltage LNA for the Direct Conversion Application With 4-KV HBM ESD Protection in 90-nm RF CMOSIEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, 2006
- An integrated 5 GHz low-noise amplifier with 5.5 kv HBM ESD protection in 90 nm RF CMOSPublished by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ,2005
- A 5-GHz fully integrated ESD-protected low-noise amplifier in 90-nm RF CMOSIEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 2005
- The Impact of an Aluminum Top Layer on Inductors Integrated in an Advanced CMOS Copper BackendIEEE Electron Device Letters, 2004
- ESD protection for a 5.5 GHz LNA in 90 nm RF CMOS — Implementation concepts, constraints and solutionsPublished by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ,2004
- Noise optimization of an inductively degenerated CMOS low noise amplifierIEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Analog and Digital Signal Processing, 2001
- A 1.5-V, 1.5-GHz CMOS low noise amplifierIEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 1997