MICROMACHINED PLANAR SPIRAL INDUCTOR IN STANDARD GAAS HEMT MMIC TECHNOLOGY

A novel free-standing planar spiral inductor with reduced parasitic ca pacitances is proposed by suspending individually the strips, through a maskless front-side bulk micromachining compatible with a commercial GaAs HEMT monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) technology. Suspended structures have been fabricated and characterized at frequen cies up to 15 GHz, showing quality factors of up to 16 and self-resona nt frequency superior to 16 GHz for a 4.8 nH inductor, Moreover, since the standard IC process as well as the unconcerned electronic circuit s are not influenced by micromachining, such devices are directly usef ul to enhance RF circuits, like matching networks, filters, and low-no ise amplifiers.