INTEGRATED STACKED-SPIRAL RF INDUCTOR WITH NANOPOWDER MAGNETIC CORE

Abstract

On-chip stacked-spiral radio-frequency (RF) inductor with vertical nanopowder-magnetic-core was proposed and implemented in standard 0.18 μm six-metal CMOS with a post-CMOS backend process module (i.e., CMOS+). To improve on the prior open-magnetic-circuit-loop structure and thus limited improvement at multi-GHz performance, the non-traditional concept shows vertical magnetic core forming a near closed magnetic loop. The ferrite nanoparticle-magnetic-core reduced magnetic loss to improve L-density to 9 GHz. Results show the proof-of-concept designs greatly increase the inductance, L, by up to 34% and the factor, Q, by 62% over a multi-GHz frequency range.