A study on RF/microwave tunable inductor topologies

Recently, tunable structures gained importance due to frequency agile microwave circuits such as tunable filters, matching networks, amplifiers, etc. that are needed to realize reconfigurable radios. Deploying tunable inductors would increase the flexibility in reconfigurable microwave circuits when used in conjunction with variable capacitors. In this paper we investigate several tunable inductor topologies. Each proposed topology has certain advantages/disadvantages and these are addressed throughout the paper.