High-Q differential inductors for RFIC design

Author

Reiha, Michael T. ; Choi, Tae-Young ; Jeon, Jong-Hyeok ; Mohammadi, Saeed ; Katehi, Linda P B

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Volume

1

fYear

2003

fDate

7-9 Oct. 2003

Firstpage

127

Abstract

The demand for high-Q on-chip monolithic inductors is driven by the motivation to enhance high-frequency circuits for wireless applications. Differential inductors can be implemented in order to improve the quality factor (Q) of differential circuits, while demanding less on-chip area. In this paper, we introduce two differential inductors of 6-nH, fabricated in a low-cost post-process. The process uses a low-k dielectric layer (SU-8™) prepared on a highly resistive silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. The inductors have modest metal thicknesses of 1.5 μm and 3.6 μm and achieve differential Q values of 14.7 at 5.9 GHz and 22.7 at 4.0 GHz, respectively, for an inductance value of 6.0 nH.

Keywords

Q-factor; dielectric thin films; radiofrequency integrated circuits; silicon-on-insulator; thin film inductors; 1.5 micron; 3.6 micron; 4.0 GHz; 5.9 GHz; Au; RFIC; SOI wafer; Si-SiO₂; differential circuit Q-factor; high-Q differential inductors; low-k dielectric layer; on-chip monolithic inductors; resistive silicon-on-insulator wafer; Conductors; Dielectric substrates; Differential amplifiers; Fabrication; Frequency; Inductors; Low-noise amplifiers; Operational amplifiers; Radiofrequency amplifiers; Radiofrequency integrated circuits;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Conference, 2003. 33rd European

Print_ISBN

1-58053-834-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/EUMC.2003.1262234

Filename

1262234