Lossy substrate and resonance analysis of embedded inductors

Integrated spiral inductors, while practically desirable and technologically feasible, challenge the modeling efforts by their half-distributed and half-lumped nature and substrate loss at high frequencies. In this paper, we examine these effects by full-wave solving. Full-wave Green's functions are developed, which capture the substrate coupling and loss effects. It is shown that the substrate loss is the main factor determining the quality factor of integrated inductors. MCM technology demonstrates its substantial advantage over regular CMOS processes in implementing high Q inductors.