Development And Comparison Of Micromachined Inductors For Rf Applications

In this work, we use a new method to modify the properties of the silicon substrate through MEMS technologies, thus reducing the parasitic losses in high frequency. A 20μm thick SiO2 layer with an air gap is firstly formed to reduce the parasitic resistance and capacitance in the low resistivity silicon substrate. Electroplating technology is used to deposit thick metal layer to reduce the series resistance due to the finite thickness of the conductor. And the performances of inductors fabricated on different substrates have been compared with each other. The electro-magnetic simulations have been performed in the work. It is found that the quality factors of such inductors can reach 15 and its self-resonance frequency is close to 10GHz. These can satisfy many RF applications.

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