LTCC Spiral Inductor Synthesis and Optimization With Measurement Verification

In RF/microwave circuit design, inductor design is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks due to the tedious trial-and-error optimization process to achieve the target specifications such as inductance, quality factor and occupied space. This paper brings forward a fast spiral inductor synthesis method, which automatically generates physical layout of inductors according to electrical specifications. By fusion of substrate-aware partial element equivalent circuit (PEEC) model with nonlinear optimization engine, our modeling and synthesis strategies have been verified with industrial field solver and measurement results. Our calculation results got less than 7% error for inductance and less than 9% for quality factor as compared to the results from full-wave electromagnetic simulation software. This can provide a fast and good initial inductor design for designer.