Monolithic, integrated high-Q inductors for RF applications

This paper presents high-Q inductors processed on 500 Ohmcm silicon substrates using a mature three layer copper metallization. The fabricated inductors have been characterized with a wide banded Q maximum roughly centered at 2GHz. The maximum Q values range from Q/sub max/ = 14 for a 20nH inductor up to Q/sub max/ = 40 for a 0.5nH inductor. By means of a 1.5nH inductor the influence of metal line width and different metallization stacks on the Q value vs. frequency behavior is presented. One typical application for these inductors are integrated passive bandpass filters for mobile phone applications. We present an ESD stable H3-bandpass-filter for PCN/PCS-applications with a low insertion loss of -1.45dB and high 3rd harmonic suppression of at least -40dB. The circuit simulations have shown an excellent correlation to the S-parameter measurement data which avoid time consuming 3D field simulations leading to reduced time to market.