Improving ESD Robustness of Stacked Diodes with Embedded SCR for RF Applications in 65-nm CMOS

Abstract

To protect the radio-frequency (RF) integrated circuits from the electrostatic discharge (ESD) damage in nanoscale CMOS process, the ESD protection circuit must be carefully designed. In this work, stacked diodes with embedded silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) to improve ESD robustness was proposed for RF applications. Experimental results in 65-nm CMOS process show that the proposed design can achieve low parasitic capacitance, low turn-on resistance, and high ESD robustness.