CMOS Low Power Current Source based Tunable Inductor for IoT Devices

This paper proposes a novel tunable inductor (TI) with integrated miniature low power current source tuner (LPCST). It is fabricated in CMOS 180 nm. In proportion to the tuner voltage, the physical inductance value can be increased up to 80% from its default value. The increasing inductance value is beneficial since a small inductor can be utilized to achieve high inductance value. Integration of the tuner to a physical inductor of 1.2 nH increases the inductance value up to 2.2 nH at 2.5 GHz contributing to an area reduction of 52%. The TI has been integrated to a single stage CMOS IoT PA and tested. The tunability property of the TI allows the performance of the IoT PA to be adjusted and makes it resilient to process variations, thus enhances reliability and production yield.