Tunable Spiral Inductors
A tunable micro-electromechanical systems integrated inductor with a large-displacement electro-thermal actuator is discussed here. Based on a transformer configuration, the inductance of a spiral inductor is tuned by controlling the relative position of a magnetically coupled short-circuited loop. Theoretical studies are backed by a variety of fabricated and measured tunable inductors that show a 2 : 1 inductance tuning ratio over a wide frequency range of approximately 25 GHz. In addition, the maximum and minimum quality factors of the tunable inductor are measured to be 26 and 10 which is high compared to previous designs. They can considerably extend the tuning capabilities of critical reconfigurable circuits such as tunable impedance matching circuits, phase shifters voltage controlled oscillators, and low noise amplifiers.
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