ESD Co-Design of 38-GHz Traveling-Wave SPDT Switch in 45-nm PDSOI

This article presents a 38-GHz distributed traveling-wave single-pole double-throw (SPDT) millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) RF switch with robust on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection implemented in a foundry 45-nm partial-depleted silicon-on-insulator (PDSOI) CMOS technology. To address the increasingly challenging design problem of ESD-induced switch circuit performance degradation in hi-GHz spectrum, the comprehensive ESD-RFIC co-design in mm-Wave bands was explored. Measurements show that careful ESD co-design can dramatically suppress the ESD-induced SPDT degradation, e.g., an increase of insertion loss (IL) of ~2.67 dB caused by ESD protection is reduced to ~0.94 dB after ESD co-design at 38 GHz. This 38-GHz SPDT hence achieves state-of-the-art overall switch performance, including IL of ~2.5 dB, isolation of ~38.7 dB, 2-kV human body model (HBM), and ~5.3-A charged device model (CDM) ESD protection. This work offers design insights for comprehensive ESD-RFIC co-design in mm-Wave bands.