On-chip ESD protection designs in RF integrated circuits for radio and wireless applications

CMOS technology has been used to implement the radio and wireless integrated circuits. However, the thinner gate oxide in nanoscale CMOS technology seriously degrades the electrostatic discharge (ESD) robustness. Therefore, on-chip ESD protection designs must be added at all input/output pads in CMOS chip. To minimize the impacts from ESD protection design on circuit performances, ESD protection at input/output pads must be carefully designed. A review on ESD protection designs with low parasitic capacitance for radio and wireless applications is presented in this paper. The comparisons among these ESD protection designs are also discussed.