A Low-Capacitance and Fast-Response Bidirectional SCR for RFICs ESD Protection Applications

For the radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection special applications, a novel low-capacitance and fast-response bidirectional silicon controlled rectifier (LFBSCR) is developed. The low capacitance is achieved by changing the series-parallel relationship of parasitic capacitances located in the electrostatic discharge path. Moreover, the fast-response-time (T-on) and the low triggering voltage (V-tl) parameters are obtained due to gate-assistant triggering mechanism. The experimented results show excellences of the LFBSCR in ESD protection critical performance: low parasitic capacitance C-ESD similar to 100fF, fast effective response T-on similar to 100ps, low triggering voltage V-t1 similar to 4.06V, and low leakage current I-leak similar to 0.016nA. With aforementioned excellences, a high robustness, and a small ESD design windows, the proposed LFBSCR is very suitable for RFICs ESD protection applications.