Micromachined on-chip inductor performance analysis

Based on measurements of inductors fabricated in the IBM SiGe process with different add-on process modules, a Moments EM field simulator is used to predict inductor performance in the entire process space of different fabrication techniques, which are chosen to improve the quality factor of inductors. These fabrication techniques include different metal thickness, different wafer resistivity, a polyimide spacer and an air spacer as a thick dielectric layer (up to 200 μm). The simulated inductors range from 0.1 nH straight line designs to 5 nH spiral designs.