Abstract
We report a single-loop inductor suitable for integration in a differential voltage-controlled oscillator (LC-VCO) with 0. 6-nH inductance and record quality factors of 18 at 10 GHz and 20 at 15 GHz fabricated in an industrial CMOS process on a 10 Ωcm substrate. A new lumped element model which accurately describes the inductor performance without the need for frequency-dependent elements is presented. During the course of this work, we found that a patterned ground shield significantly improves the inductor performance at these frequencies, but only when the polysilicon bars are connected from the center of the inductor.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 1177962 |
| Pages (from-to) | 713-715 |
| Number of pages | 3 |
| Journal | IEEE Electron Device Letters |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2002 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Manuscript received July 9, 2002; revised September 12, 2002. This work was supported by Philips Semiconductors. The review of this letter was arranged by Editor S. Kawamura. The authors are with Philips Research Laboratories, NL–5656 AA Eindhoven, The Netherlands (e-mail: [email protected]). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LED.2002.805740 Fig. 1. Chip photograph of the on-wafer inductor test-structure in two-port ground-signal-ground configuration. The four ground pads are connected in the bottom metal layer and to the (dark-gray) patterned ground shield beneath the entire inductor structure. “Open” and “short” dummy structures [7], [8] are used to de-embed the bondpad and interconnect parasitics.
Keywords
- CMOS inductors
- Integrated circuits (ICs)
- On-wafer microwave measurements
- Voltage-controlled oscillator (LC-VCO)