New TSV-Based applications: Resonant inductive coupling, variable inductor, power amplifier, bandpass filter, and antenna

Abstract

This paper presents new TSV-Based applications such as resonant inductive coupling, variable Inductor, power amplifier, bandpass filter, and antenna. These proposed systems use a spiral inductor built using TSV technology. The Resonant Inductive Coupling system increases the amount of magnetic flux linked between coils and improves the power transmission significantly. A proposed architecture based on TSV technology for a variable bridge spiral inductor is demonstrated and characterized. Where, we can obtain different values for the inductor according to the switch state, whether it is ON or OFF. In addition, TSV is used to construct transformer-coupled power amplifier. A new architecture for on-chip bandpass filters, based on through silicon via (TSV) technology. This architecture is the first in literature. According to the simulation results, the TSV-based bandpass filter has an insertion loss of 1.5 dB at 90 GHz and 20 GHz passband from 80 to 100 GHz. This band can be tuned by changing the dimensions of the coupled TSVs. TSV are also used to build an antenna on high resistivity substrate. The characteristic of this antenna is a function of TSV diameter, TSV length, and silicon resistivity. Compared to conventional on-chip antennas who suffers from low gain and low radiation efficiency, our novel antenna provides better performance parameters such as higher radiation pattern efficiency and higher gain as the antenna delivers a high gain of 5.8 dBi and the radiation efficiency is 86% over the prescribed range of frequencies. The proposed antenna is centered at 90 GHz with 20 GHz bandwidth. The overall area of the proposed antenna is 400μm×100μm. Building the antenna using TSV technology not only improves the performance, but also improves the isolation between the antenna and other active circuits.