| Integrated inductors are one of the most basic elements used in the design of modern electronic systems. However, they generally suffer from poor quality and are inherently area intensive, thus limiting system performance and prove to be a bottleneck for compact system integration. Several research efforts have been devoted to the development of miniaturized, high quality inductors. One such method proposes the use of an Artificial Magnetic Conductor (AMC) surface to enhance the inductor performance by creating a second inductive region thereby enabling inductor reuse. It can theoretically be shown, through image theory, that an AMC reflector can be used to effectively double the inductance of an inductor component. Accordingly, in order to validate this concept, two AMC surface designs are investigated for both on-chip and PCB-based implementations. The designed AMC surfaces are then integrated with standard loop inductor components in order to justify their performance benefits through measurement results of the fabricated prototypes. Finally, the practicality of this approach is demonstrated through the application of mm-wave VCOs by replacing a standard LC-VCO tank inductor with a miniaturized AMC-backed inductor. In order to do so, mm-wave LC-VCO prototypes are designed, fabricated and characterized through measurements. |
