The modeling, characterization, and design of monolithic inductors for silicon RF IC's

The results of a comprehensive investigation into the characteristics and optimization of inductors fabricated with the top-level metal of a submicron silicon VLSI process are presented. A computer program which extracts a physics-based model of microstrip components that is suitable for circuit (SPICE) simulation has been used to evaluate the effect of variations in metallization, layout geometry, and substrate parameters upon monolithic inductor performance. Three-dimensional (3-D) numerical simulations and experimental measurements of inductors were also used to benchmark the model accuracy. It is shown in this work that low inductor Q is primarily due to the restrictions imposed by the thin interconnect metallization available in most very large scale integration (VLSI) technologies, and that computer optimization of the inductor layout can be used to achieve a 50% improvement in component Q-factor over unoptimized designs.

[1]  T. M. Hyltin,et al.  Microstrip Transmission on Semiconductor Dielectrics , 1965 .

[2]  D. Kammler.  Calculation of Characteristic Admittances and Coupling Coefficients for Strip Transmission Lines , 1968 .

[3]  William H. Hayt,et al.  Engineering Circuit Analysis , 1971 .

[4]  H. Hasegawa,et al.  Properties of Microstrip Line on Si-SiO/sub 2/ System , 1971 .

[5]  R. C. Weast.  CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics , 1973 .

[6]  H. Greenhouse,et al.  Design of Planar Rectangular Microelectronic Inductors , 1974 .

[7]  R. Douville,et al.  Experimental Study of Symmetric Microstrip Bends and Their Compensation , 1978 .

[8]  R. A. Pucel,et al.  Design Considerations for Monolithic Microwave Circuits , 1981 .

[9]  J. Hauser,et al.  Electron and hole mobilities in silicon as a function of concentration and temperature , 1982, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[10]  D. Dawson,et al.  A Closed-Form Expression for Representing the Distributed Nature of the Spiral Inductor , 1986, Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Monolithic Circuits.

[11]  Inder J. Bahl,et al.  Microwave Solid State Circuit Design , 1988 .

[12]  Ingo Wolff,et al.  CAD models of lumped elements on GaAs up to 18 GHz , 1988 .

[13]  Edward Frlan.  Miniature hybrid microwave integrated circuit passive component analysis using computer-aided design techniques. , 1989 .

[14]  R. Meyer,et al.  Si IC-compatible inductors and LC passive filters , 1990 .

[15]  B. Tait,et al.  A Sub-Micron BiCMOS Technology for Telecommunications , 1991, ESSDERC '91: 21st European Solid State Device Research Conference.

[16]  Gordon G. Rabjohn.  Monolithic microwave transformers. , 1991 .

[17]  Robert G. Meyer,et al.  A Si bipolar monolithic RF bandpass amplifier , 1992 .

[18]  Robert G. Meyer,et al.  A 1.8-GHz monolithic LC voltage-controlled oscillator , 1992 .

[19]  A. Abidi,et al.  Large suspended inductors on silicon and their use in a 2- mu m CMOS RF amplifier , 1993, IEEE Electron Device Letters.

[20]  J. Wholey,et al.  Highly-integrated transmitter RFIC with monolithic narrowband tuning for digital cellular handsets , 1994, Proceedings of IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference - ISSCC '94.

[21]  F. Behbahani,et al.  A 2.7 V GSM transceiver ICs with on-chip filtering , 1995, Proceedings ISSCC '95 - International Solid-State Circuits Conference.

[22]  Y. Sasaki,et al.  Experimental study on spiral inductors , 1995, Proceedings of 1995 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium.

[23]  J. H. Havens,et al.  A 2.7 V to 4.5 V single-chip GSM transceiver RF integrated circuit , 1995 .

[24]  Robert G. Meyer,et al.  Future directions in silicon ICs for RF personal communications , 1995, Proceedings of the IEEE 1995 Custom Integrated Circuits Conference.

[25]  J. R. Long,et al.  Modeling of monolithic inductors and transformers for silicon RFIC design , 1995, Proceedings of 1995 IEEE MTT-S International Topical Symposium on Technologies for Wireless Applications (Conjunction with INTER COMM'95).

[26]  K. Jenkins,et al.  Microwave inductors and capacitors in standard multilevel interconnect silicon technology , 1996 .

[27]  S. Moinian,et al.  High Q inductors for wireless applications in a complementary silicon bipolar process , 1996 .

[28]  J. R. Long,et al.  Modeling, characterization and design of monolithic inductors for silicon RFICs , 1996, Proceedings of Custom Integrated Circuits Conference.

[29]  L. Larson,et al.  Si/SiGe HBT technology for low-cost monolithic microwave integrated circuits , 1996, 1996 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Digest of TEchnical Papers, ISSCC.