Analysis of substrate shielding methods for sub-THz on-chip inductors

An analysis of the influence of three substrate shielding methods, unshielded, patterned-ground shield and floating shield, on a sub-terahertz (sub-THz) inductor is presented. In the sub-THz frequency band, the unshielded inductor showed the best quality-factor (Q-factor) and self-resonance frequency (f_SR) since the inserted substrate shield increases the parasitic capacitance. The simulation results using an electromagnetic simulator showed good agreement with the analysis.