High-Q inductors on digital VLSI CMOS substrate for analog RF applications

In this paper, the design, modeling and performance of high-Q RF inductors using aggressively scaled digital VLSI CMOS technology are presented. Quality factors of 12.7 and 10, and self resonance frequencies of 45 GHz and 29 GHz are measured for inductors with values of 0.31 nH and 0.9 nH, respectively. The influence of parasitics is also investigated.