High current 3D symmetrical inductor integrated in an advanced HR SOI CMOS technology targeting RF power applications

During past years, high resistivity (HR) SOI CMOS technology has emerged as a promising one for the integration of RF applications, mainly because of the improvement of passive component related to HR substrate. In this trend, 3D symmetrical inductor (3DSI) has been proposed on SOI to lower the amount of area consumed by inductor while offering comparable performances than equivalent bulk technology. Recently 3DSI performances have been improved using generalized Group Cross layout (3DGCSI) technique. Unfortunately in advanced CMOS technology 3D inductor architecture suffer from limited current capability since they use the lower levels of the BEOL (which are thinner). This paper presents a novel class of High Current 3DSI (HC3DSI) aiming to resolve this issue by offering at the same time a compact form factor and high current capability. Measurement data of 3DGCSI and HC3DSI are compared with each other to investigate the advantages of this new inductor structure.