High performance spiral inductors embedded on organic substrates for SOP applications

Abstract

This paper presents the design, measured data, and systematic analysis of spiral embedded inductors fabricated on standard organic substrates using low-cost, large-area MCM-L technology. Several configurations for inductors were investigated to optimize the inductor layout dimensions such as conductor width, number of turns, inner diameter, spacing between inductor and ground, and inductor area. A maximum Q of 100 was measured for a 3.6 nH inductor at 1.8 GHz on an organic substrate with a self resonance frequency of 10.6 GHz within an inductor core area of 0.72 mm/sup 2/. The effects of configurational variables on inductor characteristics such as quality factor, self-resonance frequency, and inductance are discussed. High-Q inductors embedded on organic substrates can find numerous RF and microwave system-on-package (SOP) applications, such as VCOs, IF/RF bandpass filters, LNAs, etc., in which IC chips are flip-chip mounted on the package substrate.