STTR Phase I: Magnetically Enhanced Tunable RF Inductors

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I research project will develop die-area-efficient tunable magnetically enhanced inductors for use in Radio Frequency (RF) Integrated Circuits (IC). This project is to explore magnetic materials and inductor geometries with the goal of achieving area efficient, tunable, high Q inductors that operate at frequencies up to 6 GigaHertz (GHz) or more. In particular, the project will explore the use of magnetic alloys with ferromagnetic resonance that is significantly higher than that of permalloy in order to allow high-Q operation at frequencies up to 6GHz. The project will also explore multiple geometries for the magnetic cores, the current carrying conductors, and the inductance control conductors. As demand for RF communications bandwidth continues to increase, the need for frequency agile radios is growing. As feature sizes shrink, RF front end ICs in cell phones require up to 80% of their die area for inductors and area under inductors must be empty, increasing cost of future multi-band radios. This project could lead to the creation of frequency agile radios and could greatly reduce the cost of radios (allowing many radios to be integrated together at the cost of a single radio today). RF front end circuits that employ magnetically enhanced inductors have the potential to achieve much smaller die area, less cross talk compared to inductors used in today's cell phone RF front end ICs.