A high-performance Slow-Wave CPW with ESD protection for ultraflat band millimeter-Wave applications

A high performance Slow-Wave Coplanar Waveguide (CPW) with distributed small pieces of ESD diodes in advanced CMOS process is presented to match 50Ω characteristic impedance. Optimized design of each segmented diode pairs and its Lateral Pickups experimentally achieves a very low RF loss of -1.55dB at 60GHz while passing at least 2.6kV HBM level. Its ultraflat frequency response up to 90GHz makes it also favourable for ultrafast digital I/Os with bit rate as high as 64Gb/s.