RF inductors with suspended and copper coated thick crystalline silicon spirals for monolithic MEMS LC circuits

Author

Wengang Wu ; Fengyi Huang ; Yi Li ; Shaoyong Zhang ; Xiang Han ; Zhihong Li ; Hao, Y. ; Yangyuan Wang

Author_Institution

Nat. Key Lab. of Micro/Nano Fabrication Technol., Peking Univ., Beijing, China

Volume

15

Issue

12

fYear

2005

Firstpage

853

Lastpage

855

Abstract

This letter presents a novel radio frequency (RF) inductor in a monolithic inductor-capacitor circuit developed by using micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication technology. The inductor consists of 40-μm-thick single crystalline silicon spiral with copper surface coating as the conductor, which is suspended on a glass substrate. The fabricated inductor exhibits a self-resonance frequency higher than 15GHz, with the quality factor more than 35 and inductance over 5nH at 11.3GHz. Simulations based on a compact equivalent circuit model with parameters extracted using a characteristic-function approach have also been carried out for the inductor, and good agreement with measurements is obtained.

Keywords

MMIC; copper; equivalent circuits; inductors; micromechanical devices; silicon; 11.3 GHz; 40 micron; Cu; MEMS fabrication technology; RF inductors; Si; copper coated thick crystalline silicon spirals; copper surface coating; micro-electromechanical systems; monolithic MEMS LC circuits; monolithic inductor-capacitor circuit; radio frequency inductor; single crystalline silicon spiral; Circuits; Copper; Crystallization; Fabrication; Inductors; Microelectromechanical systems; Micromechanical devices; Radio frequency; Silicon; Spirals; Copper coating; micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS); monolithic MEMS inductor-capacitor circuit; parameter extraction and simulation; radio frequency (RF) inductor;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1531-1309

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LMWC.2005.860009

Filename

1549889