STTR Phase I: Magnetically Enhanced Tunable RF Inductors

这个小型企业技术转移第一阶段研究项目将开发用于射频（RF）集成电路（IC）的管芯面积效率可调磁增强电感器。该项目旨在探索磁性材料和电感器的几何形状，目标是实现面积高效、可调谐、高Q值电感器，其工作频率高达6千兆赫兹（GHz）或更高。特别是，该项目将探索使用铁磁共振明显高于坡莫合金的磁性合金，以便在高达6GHz的频率下实现高Q操作。该项目还将探索磁芯、载流导体和电感控制导体的多种几何形状。随着对RF通信带宽的需求持续增加，对频率捷变无线电的需求也在增长。随着功能尺寸的缩小，手机中的RF前端IC需要高达80%的芯片面积用于电感器，电感器下方的区域必须是空的，这增加了未来多频段无线电的成本。该项目可能导致频率捷变无线电的创建，并可能大大降低无线电的成本（允许许多无线电集成在一起，而成本仅为当前的一台无线电）。采用磁增强电感器的RF前端电路与当今手机RF前端IC中使用的电感器相比，有可能实现更小的管芯面积和更少的串扰。

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.