On silicon integrated inductor library design for wireless applications

This contribution reports our research in developing an integrated inductor library. From a tutorial perspective the main limitations of this element, when grown on standard silicon technologies, are presented, offering measured results taken from a set of fabricated inductors and design guidelines to improve their performance. The modeling aspects are also covered, we present results for different equivalent lumped circuits and parameter extraction styles. From the designer´s point of view, we state the main characteristics that a good integrated inductor library should include. We also report our proposed solution for this task consisting in a set of tools to automate the element selection such as their laying-out. This library development procedure and the associated tools cover the lack of these elements in present offered design kits.