An ESD-Aware 2.4 GHz PA Design for WLAN Application

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection has become an emerging challenge for Radio frequency (RF) Integrated circuits (IC). This paper reports the design and optimization of an ESD-aware 2.4GHz Power amplifier (PA) circuit in a 0.18μm RFCMOS technology. A mixed-mode ESD simulation-design method and an RF ESD characterization technique are used to accurately characterize and minimize ESD-induced parasitic effects. Significant improvement can be observed by applying this ESD-aware design technique in several areas, such as gain, linearity, and power-added efficiency.