Novel High Robustness RF ESD Protection Circuits Applied to 5.8-GHz GaAs-Based HBT Amplifiers

In this paper, the design and analysis of two novel high robustness RF electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection are proposed in GaAs 2-μm HBT process. One incorporates with the ESD devices to form a bandpass filter structure with good impedance matching, which has eight discharging paths. The other is fabricated with parasitic capacitance reduction technique for the ESD protection, and has four discharging paths. These two protection circuits are also applied to 5.8-GHz amplifiers for demonstration. In the meanwhile, two amplifiers without ESD protection and with conventional ESD protection are fabricated in parallel for comparison. Based on the measurement results, it indicates that the two proposed ESD-protected amplifiers feature much higher ESD robustness and better RF performance than the conventional design.