Integrated Ferrite Film Inductor for Power System-on-Chip (PowerSoC) Smart Phone Applications

An array of ferrite and air-core inductors was fabricated on silicon wafer to characterize inductor performance. The 1 μm and 2.5 μm thick ferrite films for the fabrication of inductors were prepared by dc magnetron sputtering. The inductance of the ferrite inductor increased with the thickness of ferrite film from 45.5 nH for 1 μm thick ferrite to 50 nH for 2.5 μm thick ferrite. The maximum Q-factor was obtained to be 59 at 2.87 MHz from 2.5 μm thick ferrite inductor, which is higher than 49.3 at 2.26 MHz for 1 μm thick ferrite inductor and 23.2 at 1.56 MHz for air-core inductor. Superimposed dc current of 1 μm and 2.5 μm thick ferrite inductors was estimated to be 2.5 A and 2.15 A, respectively, corresponding to a 5% drop in L at 10 MHz. In addition, the power efficiency of the buck dc-dc converter based on the studied ferrite inductors was calculated to be 91.7% for 2.5 μm thick ferrite inductor and 90.1% for 1 μm thick ferrite inductor at load current of 0.647 A.