Author: Ronan Thomas Meere

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13:

Trends in the miniaturisation of electronic products, especially in the portable products area, has sparked considerable interest in the miniaturisation of the energy processing electronics i.e. the power conversion circuits such as the switched mode power supply (SMPS). Unlike digital electronics which have benefited from miniaturisation and integration in microelectronics, power conversion electronics have not significantly reduced in size. This is directly due to the fact that power conversion requires energy storage components such as inductors and capacitors. The value of the inductors and capacitors required can be reduced if the switching frequency of the power converter is increased. In order to miniaturise the power converter, the switching frequency must be increased so that passive components can be miniaturised and integrated. Traditionally the inductive components have been difficult to integrate on chip. This work focused on the design and fabrication of integrated inductors-on-silicon for very high frequency power conversion (20 {u2013} 100 MHz). Initially an analytical model for micro-inductors which was developed in previous work was used to design inductors for operation up to 20 MHz. The designs selected for fabrication had a footprint area between 5 {u2013} 9 mm2 and a predicted device efficiency of 90% and above. These models were validated by finite element analysis before fabrication. The fabricated prototypes displayed a low loss of inductance to 20 MHz and current handling ability to 0.5 A. The micro-inductors were then interfaced with a high frequency dc-dc converter (20 {u2013} 100 MHz) developed by NXP Semiconductor, and achieved an inductor efficiency of 93% at 20 MHz. The maximum converter efficiency with the micro-inductor was measured to be 78.5%, which to date is highest quoted inductor-on-silicon device efficiency in a converter application at 20 MHz. Circuit equivalent lumped-element models of the micro-inductor for use in circuit simulation software were also developed. This equivalent circuit model includes elements such as capacitance, which are not accounted for in the previously developed analytical model. The initial micro-inductor devices performance was found to be comparable to commercial chip inductors for inductor efficiency when used in a converter. However, if the micro-inductor technology is to compete as a viable alternative to commercial devices, it needed to reduce its footprint area dramatically. This was achieved by using an optimisation software engine to find the inductor designs with maximum efficiency for a given footprint area. The footprint of these optimised devices ranged from 0.5 {u2013} 2.5 mm2 for a range of inductances to 200 nH. A range of optimised devices were fabricated and the measured optimised devices displayed a low loss of inductance to tens of MHz and good current handling capability. However, measured dc resistance was found to be substantially higher than design, due to issues in the fabrication process. The fabricated inductors also highlighted the trade-offs that are introduced in micro-inductor performance vs. footprint area. This design trade-off was also reflected in micro-inductor performance in a converter. An optimised 2.5 mm2 area device was tested in a dc-dc converter at 20 MHz, which resulted in a slightly lower peak micro-inductor efficiency of 90.5% than the previous larger devices. The fabricated optimised micro-inductors achieve an inductance density (inductance per unit area) ranging from 66 - 110 nH/mm2 and display current handling ability of 500mA for the 2.5 mm2, 250mA for the 1.3 mm2 and 150mA for the 0.5 mm2 area device. For inductors aimed at power conversion applications, this work shows a significant improvement to what is reported in literature - in high frequency operation to tens of MHz, inductance density and current handling.