Characterization and analysis of the effects of silicon-substrate thickness on inductor performance

✍ Scribed by Yong Zhong Xiong; Ee-Sze Khoo; Francis Y.C. Jeung

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 461 KB
• Volume: 41
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0895-2477
• DOI: 10.1002/mop.20050

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

In this paper, the effects of the thickness of silicon substrate with backside metalization on inductor performance are investigated, and the experimental results show that thinner substrate with backside metalization results in smaller inductance, lower quality factor, and slightly higher resonant frequency. For a circular spiral inductor with substrate thickness of 50 μm, the inductance L of the 8‐turn inductor would be degraded by about 22%, compared to that with substrate thickness of 150 μm; correspondingly, the quality factor Q decreases by about 16%. The measured results also show that the inductor performance with substrate thickness of 150 μm and above does not depend upon the substrate thickness. The optimization of inductor performance involves a trade‐off between the “substrate skin effect (SSE)” and thermal conductivity. It is believed that the demonstrated results will be useful for the design and packaging of RF integrated circuits (RFICs). © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 41: 70–73, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.20050