Designing elements of protection against electrostatic discharges for high-frequency CMOS circuits

A new electric circuit layout and physical structure are proposed for an element of protection against electrostatic discharges. The new element features a twofold smaller resistance to the electrostatic discharge current. The reduced resistance is obtained by using additional transistors implementing feedback. The use of the new electric circuit layout and a new simulation technique that takes into account substrate transistors allows reductions in the element’s area and its electric capacitance by factors of 1.5 and 1.6, respectively.