Millimeter-Wave Passives in 45-nm Digital CMOS

With dramatically increased f t and f max , CMOS technologies have been widely applied in the design of millimeterwave circuits. To reduce the fabrication cost, digital CMOS processes may be used. Due to the lack of thick top metal and the reduced distance between the top metal and silicon substrate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE electron device letters 2010-10, Vol.31 (10), p.1080-1082
Main Authors: Jinglin Shi, Kai Kang, Yong Zhong Xiong, Brinkhoff, James, Fujiang Lin, Xiao-Jun Yuan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Capacitors
Circuit properties
Circuits
CMOS
CMOS integrated circuits
CMOS process
CMOS processes
CPWG
Design engineering
Design. Technologies. Operation analysis. Testing
Digital
Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits
Electronic equipment and fabrication. Passive components, printed wiring boards, connectics
Electronics
Exact sciences and technology
Feasibility
Inductors
Integrated circuits
Magnetic devices
metal-oxide-metal (MOM) capacitor
Metals
microstrip
Microwave circuits, microwave integrated circuits, microwave transmission lines, submillimeter wave circuits
millimeter wave
Millimeter wave circuits
on-wafer measurement
Quality factor
R&D
Research & development
Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices
Silicon substrates
slow-wave CPW (SCPW)
spiral inductor
transmission line
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Summary:With dramatically increased f t and f max , CMOS technologies have been widely applied in the design of millimeterwave circuits. To reduce the fabrication cost, digital CMOS processes may be used. Due to the lack of thick top metal and the reduced distance between the top metal and silicon substrates in a digital CMOS, the design of high-performance passives becomes very challenging, particularly in the millimeter-wave frequency regime. In this letter, passives with novel structures were fabricated in a 45-nm digital CMOS process. These passives, including transmission lines, spiral inductors, and metal-oxide-metal (MOM) capacitors, were designed and characterized up to 110 GHz. Their performance was compared with those fabricated using 180- and 90-nm RF CMOS processes. These passives achieved good performance in the millimeter-wave regime. A MOM capacitor has a self-resonant frequency higher than 110 GHz. An inductor achieves a quality factor of 24 at 70 GHz. These results show the feasibility of implementing the millimeterwave passives and systems in a 45-nm digital CMOS process.
ISSN:0741-3106
1558-0563
DOI:10.1109/LED.2010.2058993