An ESD protected RFIC power amplifier design

Muthukrishnan, Swaminathan; Zhao, Jian; Studtmann, G.D.; Raman, Sanjay

doi:10.1109/rfic.2005.1489886

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Measurements show that the ESD protection structure may cause significant performance degradation of the PA circuit, which can be minimized by careful ESD-PA codesign. The optimized ESD-protected PA circuit achieves excellent a whole-chip performance of 5-kV ESD protection, a linear output of 13.5 dBm, a gain of 20.2 dB, and a PAE of ∼18%, compared favorable in the same design category [20], [21]. Her research interests include ultrawideband RF front-end IC design and on-chip electrostatic discharge protection designs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

ESD-Protected Power Amplifier Design in CMOS for Highly Reliable RF ICs

Wang

Guan²,

Fan³

et al. 2011

IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron.

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Electrostatic discharge (ESD) failure is a major reliability problem, and ESD protection is an emerging design challenge for radio-frequency (RF) integrated circuits demanding extremely high reliability for wireless applications in harsh environments. This paper reports the design and optimization of a 5-kV ESD-protected 2.4-GHz power amplifier (PA) circuit in a 0.18-μm RFCMOS technology. A new mixed-mode ESD simulation-design method and an accurate RF ESD characterization technique are used to minimize the inevitable ESD-induced parasitic effects, which can significantly degrade PA circuit performance. A novel ESD-aware PA design technique is utilized to optimize whole-chip ESD + P A performance. Experiments show that conventional ESD protection can seriously affect the PA circuit, while optimized ESD protection may resolve such a problem. The optimized ESD-protected PA circuit achieves good whole-chip performance, including 5-kV ESD protection, a linear output of 13.5 dBm, a gain of 20.2 dB, and a power-added efficiency of ∼18%, all favorable in the same design category.Index Terms-Electrostatic discharge (ESD), integrated circuit (IC), power amplifier (PA), radio frequency (RF).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

ESD-Protected Power Amplifier Design in CMOS for Highly Reliable RF ICs

Wang

Guan²,

Fan³

et al. 2011

IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron.

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“…Commercial suppliers generally strive for higher f t 's and low dispersion through the use of ever-finer processing techniques, because this focus is consistent with a market seeking wide operating frequency range of amplifiers [17][18][19]. Also in general, the higher the f t , the lower the throughput phase dispersion, and, hence, the better the closed-loop amplifier stability for obtaining reduced amplifier noise and distortion over the widest frequency range [20,21]. Amplifiers with f t 's over 300 GHz have made possible the use of liberal RF negative feedback at X-band, with the added benefit of wide operating frequency range within this band [22].…”

Section: A Feedback Amplifier (Fba)mentioning

confidence: 97%

Low-noise x-band oscillator and amplifier technologies: comparison and status

Howe

Hati

Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium and Exposition, 2005.

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-This study compares the phase noise of different classes of oscillators and amplifiers that work at X-band. Bestin-class results are presented based on recent measurements at NIST. In particular, comparisons are made between mature technologies of multiplied quartz, sapphire dielectric in whispering gallery mode (WGM), and air-dielectric-resonator stabilized RF oscillators in contrast to various configurations of optical electronic oscillators (OEO), cavity-stabilized, and atomstabilized optical-domain oscillators and femtosecond-lasercomb frequency synthesizers. This study also reports the status of classes of low-noise X-band amplifiers, since high-spectralpurity oscillators are constrained by amplifiers to varying degrees.Best-available low-noise X-band commercial amplifiers are compared with new feedforward, feedback, and array-gain test devices. Straight HBT (heterojunction bipolar transistors) and SiGe HBT technologies are compared in terms of phase noise. Results are for an operating frequency of 10 GHz.

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