Design and modeling of an on-silicon spiral inductor library using improved EM simulations

This paper deals with the design and modeling of integrated spiral inductors for RF applications by means of a general purpose Electromagnetic (EM) simulator. These tools allow optimizing flexibly the inductor layout structure. The inductor performance can be obtained by using a three-dimensional design tool or a two-dimensional one. Planar 2-D or so called 2.5-Ds simulators are faster and accept complex coil geometries. We have used one of these simulators, the Advanced Design System planar EM simulator, Momentum, from Agilent. The inductor quality factor (Q ) is limited, among other phenomena, by the series resistance of the metal traces and the substrate losses. Therefore the simulator requires an accurate set up of the process and simulator parameters and a correct algorithm to model metal thickness to rely on simulation results. In this paper we analyze and compare these different approaches. A high-quality factor inductor library on a 0.35 μm SiGe technology at 5 GHz is also designed in this work using the proper simulator set up. Nine of the inductors have been fabricated and measured to test the simulator reliability. Measurements taken over a frequency range from 500 MHz to 10GHz show a good agreement with 2.5-EM simulations.© (2005) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.