Micromachined intermediate and high frequency inductors

The use of inductors in electronic circuitry is widespread, especially in analog applications such as filters, tuners, and wireless communications systems such as cellular telephones and pagers. Often the number of passive components in such applications greatly exceeds the number of silicon chips, thus making desirable the ability to integrate the passive components in the same manner as transistors are currently integrated. Because the passive components are often relatively large in size, it can be more appropriate to integrate these devices into the package rather than on the chip. This paper describes several methods for integrating intermediate and high frequency inductive components with low temperature multichip module laminate substrates, with the goal of achieving lower cost and smaller size than current packages with hybrid-mounted inductors.