Three-dimensional radio-frequency transformers based on a self-rolled-up membrane platform

Abstract

Radio-frequency (RF) integrated circuits are used for wireless communications and require transformers capable of transferring electrical energy at RF/microwave frequencies. Traditional on-chip RF transformer designs have complex fabrication schemes and offer limited performance scalability. Here we report on-chip RF/microwave transformers that are based on a self-rolled-up membrane platform. The monolithic nature and versatility of this platform allows us to create high-performance transformers while maintaining an ultra-compact device footprint and by using only planar processing. We also show that the performance of the three-dimensional RF transformers improves with scaling, which is in contrast to conventional planar designs. In particular, we observe a continuous rate of increase in the index of performance of our RF transformers as we scale up the turns ratio. This behaviour is attributed to the almost ideal mutual magnetic coupling inherent to the self-rolled-up membrane three-dimensional architecture.