A high-performance MEMS transformer for silicon RF ICS

A new spiral-type suspended transformer for silicon radio frequency integrated circuits (RF ICs) has been fabricated by surface micromachining technology The fabricated transformer on standard silicon substrate has shown a low insertion loss of 1.9 dB at 1 GHz by reducing substrate coupling and ohmic loss using the proposed MEMS technology. Equivalent circuit models for the spiral-type suspended transformer have been extracted and shown that they agree well with measured characteristics.