A Proposal of Broadband High-Q Monolithic Active Inductors by Using Resonant Tunneling Diodes

In this paper, we propose and analyze a novel broadband high-Q active inductor on the basis of integration with resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) revealing negative differential resistance (NDR). The proposed implementation of the active inductor is shown in Fig. 1. The basic concept is to realize the active inductor by using immittance transformation of an external capacitance Co with an broadband active gyrator which is formed by two resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) and a FET. Alternative approaches to realize active inductors have been reported only based on GaAs FETs[1], HBTs[2] and CMOS transistors[3], however, to our knowledge, the RTD-based active gyrator has never been proposed so far. Moreover, the RTD-based broadband active inductor has a possibility to exhibit larger Q-values than others even when typical practical values of parasitic component are considered.