Inductive ESD Protection For Narrow Band and Ultra-Wideband CMOS Low Noise Amplifiers

Abstract

A novel inductive electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection methodology for narrow-band (NB) and ultra-wideband (UWB) low noise amplifiers (LNA) is presented. Spectre post-layout simulations in a TSMC 0.18μm CMOS process show that the proposed primary-secondary inductive ESD protection can handle 4kV ESD stress. The proposed UWB LNA achieves a flat gain bandwidth of 2.7GHz to 9GHz, a power gain of 10dB, a minimum noise figure of 3.2dB and a total power dissipation of 6.6mW from a 1.2V supply.