ESD protection design for gigahertz differential LNA in a 65-nm CMOS process

The electrostatic discharge (ESD) immunity test for EMC was one important reliability regulation. The turn-on-efficient on-chip ESD protection circuit is required to clamp the overstress voltage. A new design of ESD protection diodes with embedded silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) was proposed to protect the gigahertz differential low-noise amplifier (LNA). Experimental results had shown that the proposed ESD protection design for the differential LNA can achieve excellent ESD robustness and good RF performances.