ESD mm-Wave-Circuit Protection: 3-dB Couplers

This article presents an innovative architecture for the implementation of electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection millimeter-wave (mm-wave) devices. The proposed is based on use 3-dB couplers, whose coupled outputs have been shorted to ground node. In order reduce physical dimensions coupler and reach high coupling required this application, Coupled Slow wave CoPlanar Waveguides (CS-CPWs) was favored. demonstrator system fabricated in STMicroelectronics 55-nm bipolar-cmos (BiCMOS) technology, demonstrating a return loss greater than 10 dB across 50–160-GHz frequency range, attenuation 18 below 5 GHz, minimum insertion at 90 GHz 0.55 dB. To prove performance solution, human body model (HBM) charge device (CDM) events were simulated input coupler, showing that effectively protects against these while minimally impacting RF path.