Implementation of 6kV ESD Protection for a 17GHz LNA in 130nm SiGeC BiCMOS

A systematic implementation of ESD protection for a 17GHz LNA in 130nm SiGeC BiCMOS technology is presented. The ability to achieve pre-silicon ESD reliability confidence is demonstrated through the comparison of HBM ESD simulations and measurements on the circuit. The inductor-based ESD protection methodology achieves more than 6kV HBM ESD robustness for the LNA, the highest ever reported in a similar technology.