On-Chip Meander Line N-Well Resistor with Shielded Ground Conductor for Q-Factor Improvement

ABSTRACT

The on-chip meander line n-well resistor with a shielded ground conductor inserted parallel between the meander line on the silicon substrate is studied. The new design configuration concept with the shielded ground conductor improved the Q factor compared to those without the shielded ground conductor operating at high frequency. It was confirmed that the design configuration for the shielded ground conductor with a larger coverage area and increasing the number of parallel with the meander signal line was significant in improving the Q-factor performance operating at high frequency. Using this improvement method, the Q-factor value for proposed design meander line n-well structure with shielded ground conductor at 2 µm width in two T shapes has improved around 8% to 9% at 8, 9, and 10 GHz and reduced the parasitic mutual capacitance by 49.35 fF at 10 GHz when compared to the conventional structure of meander line n-well resistors. Shielded ground conductor technique is effective due to reduction of parasitic mutual capacitance. The resulting simulation of the return loss was improved using the shielded ground conductor method, but has poor of insertion loss, due to the skin effect. Overall, it has better performance compared to other designs because it has had significant improvement for Q factor to beyond 4 GHz and better return loss for all the range of frequency.

KEYWORDS:

• Coupling
• Meander line resistor
• Mutual capacitor
• Q factor
• Parasitic
• Shielding ground conductor
• Skin effect

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank University Malaya High Impact Research Grant (UM.C/HIR/MOHE/ENG/19) and the Sonnet Corporation for the EM simulation to support this project.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Goon Weng Wong

Goon Weng Wong received his BEng (Hons) degree in electronic engineering from Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Malaysia, in 2002 and his MEng degree in electronic and telecommunication from University Technology of Malaysia, Skudai, Malaysia, in 2008. He is currently pursuing his PhD degree at the Department of Electrical Engineering of University of Malaya. His research interests span topics in RF microelectronic and wireless communication. He is a Member of Institute of Engineers Malaysia (IEM) and Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM).

E-mail: [email protected]

Norhayati Soin

Norhayati Soin received the BEng (Hons) degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Liverpool University, UK in 1991, the MSc degree in microelectronic and IT from Liverpool John Moores University in 1999, and the PhD degree from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in 2006. She is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya. Her research interests topics in microelectronics (reliability of integrated circuit and semiconductor devices, IC design, and semiconductor device modelling), RF micro electromechanical system (MEMS), and BIOMEMS. She is the head of VLSI Research Group since 2011.

E-mail: [email protected]