Paper

ESD Behavior of RF Switches and Importance of System Efficient ESD Design

Seyed Mostafa Mousavi (EMC Laboratory, Missouri S&T University, Rolla, MO, USA) seyedmostafa.mousavi@mst.edu
David Pommerenke (Institute of Electronics & SAL-GEMC lab, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria) david.pommerenke@tugraz.at
Benjamin Lee (Google Inc., Taipei, TW) Benjielee@google.com
Emil Tauber (Institute of Electronics, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria) emil.tauber@student.tugraz.at
Daryl Beetner (EMC Laboratory, Missouri S&T University, Rolla, MO, USA) daryl@mst.edu
Warwick Ka Kui Wong (Google Inc., Mountainview, CA, USA) warwickwong@google.com
Amin Pak (Institute of Electronics & SAL-GEMC lab, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria) amin.pak@tugraz.at
Ketan Shringarpure (Google Inc., Mountainview, CA, USA) ketans@google.com

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Abstract

RF switches are typically used in the RF frontend of portable devices such as antenna or matching tuners to improve the RF link performance. They are usually the first active devices after the antenna and are vulnerable to primary or secondary ESD discharges to the antennas. This paper investigates the ESD behavior of one of the high frequency switches used in the RF-front-end of portable devices and expresses the importance of the ESD pulse that passes through the switch and reaches the next stage in the RF path, possibly damaging the next stage.