Thin-Film Magnetic Inductors on Silicon for Integrated Power Converters

This work presents a silicon integrated high-performance thin-film inductor technology with improved magnetic core laminations. The deposition process parameters of the lamination material are tuned to obtain good quality lamination oxide, and its quality is verified by analyzing elemental composition through energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy. Due to the high-quality lamination oxide, a peak quality factor of 21 and inductance to DC resistance (L/RDC) ratio of 425 nH/Ohm are achieved in this inductor technology. These figure of merits represent more than 95% inductor switching efficiency in power converters, and significant improvements in quality factor (Q) and L/RDC compared to other leading technologies.

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