• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.251-265
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• 2011

Low-noise amplifier(LNA) is a component that amplifies the signal while lowering the noise figure of high-frequency signal. LNA holds a very important position in RF system so that it is widely used for telecommunication. Electro static discharge(ESD) is the most common cause of malfunction for low-powered components, such as Large Scale Integration and IC type LNA is weak in ESD. This thesis studies static effect of communication LNA. It analyzes ESD effect, which occurs within LNA circuit, and describes testing standard and methods. In order to find out LNA's susceptiblity to electro static, two well-recognized communication IC type LNA models were selected to be tested. Then static-induced malfunction was carefully analyzed and it suggests architectural problem and improvement from the LNA's ESD point of view.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.8 no.1 s.14
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• pp.136-144
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• 2004

From the AC analysis results utilizing a two dimensional device simulator, the ac equivalent-circuit modeling of the ESD protection devices is executed. It is explained that the ac equivalent circuit of the NMOS protection transistor is modeled by a rather complicated form and that, depending on the frequency range, the error can be large if it is modeled by a simple RC serial circuit. It is also shown that the ac equivalent circuit of the thyristor-type pnpn protection device can be modeled by a simple RC serial circuit. Based on the circuit simulations utilizing the extracted equivalent circuits, the effects of the parasitics in the protection device on the characteristics of LNA are examined when the LNA, which is one of the important RF circuits, is equipped with the protection device. It is explained that a large error can result in estimating the circuit characteristics if the NMOS protection transistor is modeled by a simple capacitor. It is also confirmed that the degradation of the LNA characteristics by incorporating the ESD protection device can be reduced a lot by adopting the suggested pnpn device.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.628-634
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• 2005

From AC analysis results utilizing a 2-dimensional device simulator, we extracted an AC-equivalent circuit of a grounded-gate NMOS (ggNMOS) electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection device. The extracted equivalent circuit is utilized to analyze the effects of the parasitics in a ggNMOS protection device on the characteristics of a low noise amplifier (LNA). We have shown that the effects of the parasitics can appear exaggerated for an impedance matching aspect and that the noise contribution of the parasitic resistances cannot be counted if the ggNMOS protection device is modeled by a single capacitor, as in prior publications. We have confirmed that the major changes in the characteristics of an LNA when connecting an NMOS protection device at the input are reduction of the power gain and degradation of the noise performance. We have also shown that the performance degradation worsens as the substrate resistance is reduced, which could not be detected if a single capacitor model is used.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.288-292
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• 2002

We propose the new type of on-chip ESD protection method for RF applications. By using the properties of RF circuits, we can use the short-circuited stub as ESD protection device in front of the DC blocking capacitor Specially, we can use short-circuited stub as the portion of the matching circuit so to reduce the and various parameters of the transmission line. This new type ESD protection method is very different from the conventional ESD protection method. With the new type ESD protection method, we remove the parasitic capacitance of ESD protection device which degrade the performance of core circuit.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.366-372
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• 2017

In this paper, the analysis of baluns that are inevitably required to design a differential low noise amplifier, The balun converts a single signal input from the antenna into a differential signal, which serves as an input to the differential amplifier. In addition, it protects the circuit from ESD(Electrostatic Discharge) coming through the antenna and helps with input matching. However, in the case of a passive balun used in general, since the AC signal is transmitted through electromagnetic coupling formed between two metal lines, it not only has loss without gain but also has the greatest influence on the total noise figure of the receiving end. Therefore, the design of a balun in a low-noise amplifier is very important, and it is important to design a balun in consideration of line width, line spacing, winding, radius, and layout symmetry that are necessary. In this paper, the factors to be considered for improving the quality factor of balun are summarized, and the tendency of variation of resistance, inductance, and capacitance of the balun according to design element change is analyzed. Based on the analysis results, it is proved that the design of input balun allows the design of low noise, high gain differential amplifier with gain of 24 dB and noise figure of 2.51 dB.