Canonic Realizations of Voltage-Controlled Floating Inductors Using CFOAs and Analog Multipliers

New voltage-controlled floating inductors employing CFOAs and an analog multiplier have been presented which have the attractive features of using a canonic number of passive components (only two resistors and a capacitor) and not requiring any component-matching conditions and design constraints for the intended type of inductance realization. The workability and applications of the new circuits have been demonstrated by SPICE simulation and hardware experimental results based upon AD844-type CFOAs and AD633-type/MPY534 type analog multipliers.

Fabrication of Meander and Spiral Type Micro Inductors

To obtain microstructure of magnetic devices, the thin film inductors were fabricated by the process such as thin film manufacturing, photolithography and wet etching. The frequency characteristics of these devices are measured at high frequency range. When the inductor sizes of the spiral and the meander type are same, the inductance and the quality factor of the spiral type inductor are larger than those of the meander type inductor, but the driving frequency of the spiral type inductor is lower than that of the meander type inductor.

State Variable Model for Considering the Parasitic Inductor Resistance on the Open Loop Performance of DC to DC Converters

This paper shows DC and small-signal circuit models for the PWM DC to DC buck, boost and back/ boost converters with the equivalent series resistance of the inductor. The DC voltage transfer function and the efficiency of the converter are derived from the DC model. Small-signal open-loop characteristics are derived from the small-signal model based on a state variable model. A design example proves the performance of the circuit and verification of the model.

YIG Thin Film for RF Integrated Inductor

The yttrium iron garnet（YIG） thin films prepared by the sol-gel method and rapid thermal annealing（RTA） process for integrated inductor are investigated. The X-ray diffraction（XRD） results indicate that the YIG film annealed above 650 ℃ is poly-crystalline with single-phase garnet structure. Moreover, it can be found that the initial permeability μi, saturation magnetization MS and coercivity Hc of these YIG films increase with increasing RTA temperature. Low temperature annealing after crystallization can further improve the magnetic properties of YIG film. Thereby, a planar integrated inductor in the presence of Si substrate/SiO2 layer/Y2.8Bi0.2Fe5O12 thin film/Cu spiral coil structure is fabricated successfully by the standard IC processes. Due to the magnetic enhancement originated from YIG film, the inductance L and quality factor Q of the inductor with YIG film are improved in a certain frequency range.

A New Method for Optimizing Layout Parameter ofan Integrated On-Chip Inductor in CMOSRF IC's

Analyzing the influence on Q factor, which was caused by the parasitic effect in a CMOS RF on chip integrated inductor, a concise method to increase the Q factor has been obtained when optimizing the layout parameter. Using this method, the Q factor of 7.9 can be achieved in a 5nH inductor (operating frequency is 2GHz) while the errors in inductance are less than 0.5% compared with the aimed values. It is proved by experiments that this method can guarantee the sufficient accuracy but require less computation time. Therefore, it is of great use for the design of the inductor in CMOS RF IC’s.

On-Chip Inductor Technique for Improving LNA Performance Operating at 15 GHz

This paper presents a technique for low noise figure reduction of low-noise amplifier (LNA). The proposed LNA is designed in a source degeneration technique that offers lower noise figure. The resistance of the on-chip inductor is reduced by using multilayer that significantly reduces the thermal noise due to spiral inductor. Also, using spiral inductor as a gate inductor reduces the effect of the input parasitic capacitance on the noise figure and provides a good matching at the input and output of the LNA. The results of the LNA using multilayer on-chip inductor compared will off-chip inductor have been illustrated. It shows that the proposed technique reduces significantly the noise figure and improves the matching. The proposed LNA is designed in 0.13 μm process with 1.3 V supply voltage and simulated using Advanced Design System (ADS) software. The simulation results show that the LNA is unconditionally stable and provides a forward gain of 11.087 dB at operating frequency of 15 GHz with 1.784 dB noise figure and input and output impedance matching of –17.93 dB, and –10.04 dB.

Inductor Current Sampled Feedback Control of Chaos in Current-Mode Boost Converter

A chaos control strategy for chaotic current-mode boost converter is presented by using inductor current sampled feedback control technique.The quantitative analysis of control mechanism is performed by establishing a discrete alterative map of the controlled system.The stability criterion,feedback gain,and corresponding critical duty ratio are obtained from the eigenvalue of the map.The simulation results verify the t heoretical analysis results of the control strategy.

The coupling effect of air-bridges on broadband spiral inductors in SiC-based MMIC technology

The coupling effect of air-bridges on broadband spiral inductors in SiC-based MMIC technology has been investigated deeply. The fabricated 1-nH spiral inductor on SiC substrate demonstrates a self-resonant frequency of 51.6 GHz, with a peak Q-fact of 12.14 at 22.1 GHz. From the S-parameters measurements, the exponential decay phenomenon is observed for L, Q-factor, and SRF with the air-bridge height decreasing, and an analytic expression is concluded to exactly fit the measured data which can be used to predict the performance of the spiral inductor. All the coefficients in the formula have specific meaning. By means of establishing the lumped model, the parasitic coupling capacitance of the air-bridge has been extracted and presents the exponential decay with the air-bridge heights decreasing which indicates that this capacitor is directly related to the coupling effect of the air-bridge. Through the electromagnetic field distribution simulation, the details of the electric field around the air-bridge have been presented which demonstrate the formation and the variation principles of the coupling effect.

Effect of lateral structure parameters of SiGe HBTs on synthesized active inductors

The effect of lateral structure parameters of transistors including emitter width, emitter length, and emitter stripe number on the performance parameters of the active inductor （AI）, such as the effective inductance Ls, quality factor Q, and self-resonant frequency too is analyzed based on 0.35%tm SiGe BiCMOS process. The simulation results show that for AI operated under fixed current density Jc, the HBT lateral structure parameters have significant effect on Ls but little influence on Q and 090, and the larger Ls can be realized by the narrow, short emitter stripe and few emitter stripes of SiGe HBTs. On the other hand, for AI with fixed HBT size, smaller Jc is beneficial for AI to obtain larger Ls, but with a cost of smaller Q and 090. In addition, under the fixed collector current Ic, the larger the size of HBT is, the larger Ls becomes, but the smaller Q and ab become. The obtained results provide a reference for selecting geometry of transistors and operational condition in the design of active inductors.

Fabrication and Performance of Novel RF Spiral Inductors on Silicon

This paper discusses fabrication and performance of novel circular spiral inductors on silicon. The substrate materials underneath the inductor coil are removed by wet etching process. In the fabrication process, fine polishing of the photoresist is used to simplify the processes and ensure perfect contact between the seed layer and the top of pillars. Dry etching technique is used to remove the seed layer. The results show that Q-factor of the inductor is greatly improved by removing silicon underneath the inductor coil. The spiral inductor with line width of 50 μm has a peak Q-factor of 10 for the inductance of 2.5 nH at frequency of 1 GHz, and the resonance frequency of the inductor is about 8.5 GHz. For the inductor of conductor width 80 μm, the peak Q-factor increases to about 17 for inductance of 1.5 nH in the frequency range of 0.05 -3.00 GHz.

Soft switching arc welding power source using output inductor as resonant inductor

Full bridge Zero Voltage Switch PWM converter combines advantages of the PWM control technique and resonant technique. However, Full ZVS is achieved only under large load current because resonant tank of this circuit is made up of the parasitic capacitance of the power semiconductors and the leakage inductor of the transformer primary. In this paper two saturable inductors as magnetic switches are added to secondary, so output inductor is always reflected to primary and assists resonant transition. Full ZVS is achieved under lower load current. The above mentioned investigated results are validated by the computerized simulation and hardware circuit experiment.

CNTFET Based Grounded Active Inductor for Broadband Applications

A new carbon nanotube field effect transistor(CNTFET)based grounded active inductor(GAI)circuit is presented in this work.The suggested GAI offers a tunable inductance with a very wide inductive bandwidth,high quality factor(QF)and low power dissipation.The tunability of the realized circuit is achieved through CNTFET based varactor.The proposed topology shows inductive behavior in the frequency range of 0.1–101 GHz and achieves to a maximum QF of 9125.The GAI operates at 0.7 V with 0.337 mW of power consumption.To demonstrate the performance of GAI,a broadband low noise amplifier(LNA)circuit is designed by utilizing the GAI based input matching-network.The realized LNA provides high frequency bandwidth(17.5–57 GHz),low noise figure(<3 dB)and occupies less space due to absence of any spiral inductor.Moreover,it exhibits a flat forward gain of 15.9 than±0.9 dB,a reverse isolation less than−63 dB and input return loss less−10 dB over the entire frequency bandwidth.The proposed CNTFET based GAI and LNA circuits are designed and verified by using HSPICE simulations with Stanford CNTFET model at 16 nm technology node.

Magnetic-Particle-Composite-Medium-Filled Stacked-Spiral Inductors for Radio-Frequency CMOS Applications

Magnetic-particle-composite-medium-filled stacked-spiral inductors for rf complementary metal oxide semiconductor(CMOS)applications in GHz are demonstrated.The new inductor features a nearly closed magnetic circuit loop,an optimized high-permeability and low-loss sub-1μm magnetic particles'composite core,and a developed 0.18-μm CMOS-compatible device fabrication process.An equivalent circuit model with structural amplifying factors is proposed and modeled.The prototype of the 6-level stacked inductor with Co_(2)Z magnetic-particles-composite-medium filling increases the inductance L by 50%,and quality factor Q by 37%at frequencies as high as 1 GHz,with high inductance density as 825 nH/mm2 and a reduced size area by 80%compared to the planar spiral inductor.

Investigation into PCB Routing Loss for Coupled Inductor Based VR (Voltage Regulator) Design in Server Computing System

Coupled inductor is one appealing technology to improve transient response and reduce output decoupling significantly in interleaved multi-phase voltage regulators (VRs). One well known problem is that coupled inductor winding structure causes PCB routing path longer than discrete inductor design. This paper investigates possible PCB routing schemes for coupled inductor and conducts a fair and quantitative comparison with discrete inductor in a server VR design. Simulation and measurement are also conducted to verify the analysis.

A wave controlling method for CO_2 welding using saturable inductor

A new current wave controlling method for short circuit transition CO 2 welding using saturable inductor is put forward in this paper. Theory analysis and experiment results prove that the inverter's dynamic characteristics is greatly improved, the declining speed of current during liquid bridge neck shrinking is quicker, subsequently the energy accumulated in the bridge and the radius of the bridge before rupturing is reduced thus the low spatter result is achieved.

Predicting Individual Phase Current in Couple Inductor Based Voltage Regulators (VRs)

Coupled inductor is one appealing technology to improve transient response and reduce output decoupling significantly in interleaved multi-phase voltage regulators (VRs). One known problem is that there is no mature solution yet to sense the individual phase current accurately in a lossless way for couple inductor based VRs design. This will impact VR some normal function in one phase mode. This paper proposes a new solution to this problem and simulation is conducted to verify effectiveness of the proposal.

An Inductor Model for Analyzing the Performance of Printed Meander Line Antennas in Smart Structures

Meander line antenna has been considered desirable on flight vehicles to reduce drag and minimize aerodynamic disturbance;however, the antenna design and performance analysis have made mostly by trial-and-error. An inductor model by simulating the meander line sections as electrical inductors and the interconnecting radiation elements as a quasi-monopole antenna is developed to analyze the antenna performance. Experimental verifications of the printed meander line antennas embedded in composite laminated substrates show that the inductor model is effective to design and analyze. Of the 4 antennas tested, the discrepancy of resonant frequency in simulation and experiment is within 4.6%.

Reluctance Network Analysis for Complex Coupled Inductors

The use of reluctance networks has been a conventional practice to analyze transformer structures. Basic transformer structures can be well analyzed by using the magnetic-electric analogues discovered by Heaviside in the 19th century. However, as power transformer structures are getting more complex today, it has been recognized that changing transformer structures cannot be accurately analyzed using the current reluctance network methods. This paper presents a novel method in which the magnetic reluctance network or arbitrary complexity and the surrounding electrical networks can be analyzed as a single network. The method presented provides a straightforward mapping table for systematically linking the electric lumped elements to magnetic circuit elements. The methodology is validated by analyzing several practical transformer structures. The proposed method allows the analysis of coupled inductor of any complexity, linear or non-linear.

Simplified Model of a Layer of Interconnects under a Spiral Inductor

An empirical effective medium approximation that provides a homogeneous equivalent for a layer of interconnects un-derneath a spiral inductor is presented. When used as part of a numerical 3D model of the inductor, this approach yields a faster simulation that uses less memory, yet still predicts the quality factor and inductance to within 1%. We expect this technique to find use in the electromagnetic modeling of System-on-Chip.

A compact and reconfigurable low noise amplifier employing combinational active inductors and composite resistors feedback techniques

A compact and reconfigurable low noise amplifier(LNA)is proposed by combining an input transistor,composite transistors with Darlington configuration as the amplification and output transistor,T-type structure composite resistors instead of a simplex structure resistor,a shunt inductor feedback realized by a tunable active inductor(AI),a shunt inductor peaking technique realized by another tunable AI.The division and collaboration among different resistances in the T-type structure composite resistor realize simultaneously input impedance matching,output impedance matching and good noise performance;the shunt feedback and peaking technique using two tunable AIs not only extend frequency bandwidth and improve gain flatness,but also make the gain and frequency band can be tuned simultaneously by the external bias of tunable AIs;the Darlington configuration of composite transistors provides high gain;furthermore,the adoption of the small size AIs instead of large size passive spiral inductor,and the use of composite resistors make the LNA have a small size.The LNA is fabricated and verified by GaAs/InGaP hetero-junction bipolar transistor(HBT)process.The results show that at the frequency of 7 GHz,the gain S_(21)is maximum and up to 19 dB;the S_(21)can be tuned from 17 dB to 19 dB by tuning external bias of tunable AIs,that is,the tunable amount of S_(21)is 2 dB,and similarly at 8 GHz;the tunable range of 3 dB bandwidth is 1 GHz.In addition,the gain S_(21)flatness is better than 0.4 dB under frequency from 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz;the size of the LNA only has 760μm×1260μm(including PADs).Therefore,the proposed strategies in the paper provide a new solution to the design of small size and reconfigurable ultra-wideband(UWB)LNA and can be used further to adjust the variations of gain and bandwidth of radio frequency integrated circuits(RFICs)due to package,parasitic and the variation of fabrication process and temperature.