Design and Simulation of a Micro-coiled Digitally-Controlled Variable Inductor with a Monolithically Integrated MEMS Switch

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel design and simulation of a monolithically integrated MEMS-based digitally controlled variable inductor with a magnetic core, capable of dynamically adjusting inductance for microelectronic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a fully MEMS-compatible process for fabricating a 3D microcoil with integrated switches, enabling digital control of inductance over a wide range.

Findings

Achieved inductance variation from one fifth to five times the base value.

Demonstrated magnetic core improves coil response by over five times.

Designed coils range from 100 um to 1000 um in length with up to 100 windings.

Abstract

This work introduces the design analysis simulation and a standard MEMS fabrication process for a three dimensional microcoil with a magnetic core and a digital switch configuration using a completely integrated fully MEMS compatible process to achieve a digitally controlled inductance. The proposed design can also be utilized as a micro transformer. The proposed design consists of five identical 3D coils and their corresponding MEMS switches. These coils are digitally controlled to achieve a variable inductor ranging from one fifth of the coil inductance up to five times the coil inductance. A standard five layer Polymumps process is proposed to fabricate the microcoils and the integrated switches. Each micro coil is anchored directly on chip connected to the input signal from one side and the other is connected to the switch. The Ni based magnetic core improves the coil response by confining and guiding the magnetic field in the magnetic device compared to Si core based by more than five times. The presented coil has the number of windings limited by the designed length and the minimum spacing that can be realized by standard optical lithography. The coil diameter is also restricted by the limits defined by optical lithography whereas the maximum height realizable by the Polymumps process limits the height of the magnetic core and accordingly results in lower inductor performance. Based on this technique we present coils ranging from 100 um in length and ten winding up to 1000 um in length and 100 windings. The new monolithically integrated MEMS switches act as selectors to achieve a variable inductance with digital control to allow the selection among n inductance steps where n is the number of coils.