Novel ESD protection solution for single-ended mixer in GaAs pHEMT technology

This paper develops an improved electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection solution built with a novel dual-gate, depletion-mode pHEMT device in the GaAs technology. The successful implementation of this ESD clamp in a single ended passive RF mixer with a Human Body Model (HBM) ESD protection level of over 1.8 kV is also demonstrated. The ESD protected mixer is also shown to maintain its RF integrity with only a minimal degradation in the conversion loss and noise figure.