Membrane supported spiral inductors for up to 10 GHz filter applications

Abstract

The paper describes a new approach for the design of lumped components supported on high resistivity silicon substrates as well as on thin dielectric membranes obtained by silicon micromachining. The method employs intensive electromagnetic modeling and layout optimization. The influence of various geometrical parameters (number of coils, width of the line, thickness of the metallization, etc) is analyzed. The quality factor for micromachined inductors is compared with those obtained for the bulk silicon supported structures and a significant increase of this parameter is observed for the membrane supported structures. The simulation were used in the design modeling and manufacturing of micromachined L-C type filter structures in the 1-10 GHz frequency band