Self-assembly of high performance on-chip RF-MEMS inductors using internal stress

Abstract

This work reports on the design of three-dimensional, on-chip RF-MEMS inductors based on self-assembly using residual stress in thin films. We show internal stress-based self-assembly of patterned thin films into single and multiple-turn vertical inductors with spiral and solenoid geometry, and verify performance improvement using coupled multi-physics simulation tools. Structures after transverse bending display high g-factor and high self-resonance frequency as compared to inductor configurations in planar geometry with the same turn-density. Simulation results indicate that, performance increase of approximately 200% in g-factor and ∼ 41% in resonance frequency can be achieved for single-turn ring inductors, while g-factor and resonance frequency values were doubled for multiple-turn spiral inductors upon vertical self-assembly.