High-performance microwave passive components on silicon substrate

High-Performance microwave passive components are demonstrated on standard silicon substrate incorporating a low-k Benzocyclobutene (BCB) layer. Metal ohmic loss and substrate coupling loss, the two major factors that degrade the on-chip passive components are suppressed by the employment of electroplated copper and the low-k BCB layer, respectively. Spiral inductors exhibit Q-factor as high as 25 at 2 GHz. A low-loss, low-pass microstrip transmission line based microwave filter has been fabricated. The filter has a cut-off frequency at 10 GHz with an insertion loss of -1.1 dB. The fabrication process is low-cost and low-temperature, making it suitable for post-IC process for high performance RFIC's and MMIC's.