CMOS-compatible surface-micromachined suspended-spiral inductors for multi-GHz silicon RF ICs

Author

Yoon, Jun-Bo ; Choi, Yun-Seok ; Kim, Byeong-Il ; Eo, Yunseong ; Yoon, Euisik

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Korea Adv. Inst. of Sci. & Technol., Taejon, South Korea

Volume

23

Issue

10

fYear

2002

Firstpage

591

Lastpage

593

Abstract

Fully CMOS-compatible, highly suspended spiral inductors have been designed and fabricated on standard silicon substrates (1/spl sim/30 /spl Omega//spl middot/cm in resistivity) by surface micromachining technology (no substrate etch involved). The RF characteristics of the fabricated inductors have been measured and their equivalent circuit parameters have been extracted using a conventional lumped-element model. We have achieved a high peak Q-factor of 70 at 6 GHz with inductance of 1.38 nH (at 1 GHz) and a self-resonant frequency of over 20 GHz. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest Q-factor ever reported on standard silicon substrates. This work has demonstrated that the proposed microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) inductors can be a viable technology option to meet the today´s strong demands on high-Q on-chip inductors for multi-GHz silicon RF ICs.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; Q-factor; equivalent circuits; field effect MMIC; inductance; inductors; micromachining; micromechanical devices; 1 GHz; 1 to 30 ohmcm; 20 GHz; 6 GHz; CMOS-compatible surface-micromachined suspended-spiral inductors; MEMS inductors; RF characteristics; Si; equivalent circuit parameters; high peak Q-factor; inductance; lumped-element model; multi-GHz Si RF ICs; self-resonant frequency; standard Si substrate; surface micromachining technology; CMOS technology; Conductivity; Equivalent circuits; Etching; Inductors; Micromachining; Q factor; Radio frequency; Silicon; Spirals;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2002.803767

Filename

1039177