CN112259348B

CN112259348B - Integrated inductive device and amplifier

Info

Publication number: CN112259348B
Application number: CN202011133209.7A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 贾海昆; 关平达; 邓伟; 池保勇
Original assignee: Tsinghua University
Current assignee: Tsinghua University
Priority date: 2020-10-21
Filing date: 2020-10-21
Publication date: 2022-01-11
Anticipated expiration: 2040-10-21
Also published as: CN112259348A

Abstract

An embodiment of the application discloses an integrated inductive device and an amplifier, the integrated inductive device may comprise a multi-stage inductive device; at least two inductive devices of adjacent stages of the multi-stage inductive devices are folded. Through the scheme of the embodiment, the occupied area is greatly reduced, and the circuit cost is reduced.

Description

Integrated inductive device and amplifier

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to the field of millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuits, and more particularly, to an integrated inductive device and amplifier.

Background

For 5G communication, a transformer (inductance) is essential. The size of the transformer (inductor) is not increased along with the increase of the integrated circuit process, and the cost of the transformer (inductor) is higher and higher under the advanced process. Moreover, the transformer (inductor) can break the power mesh, and the placement position of the bump is limited. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce the transformer (inductance) footprint in the transceiver as much as possible.

In addition, in the conventional millimeter wave rf integrated circuit, in order to realize a wide bandwidth and a high gain, an interstage matching method using a transformer as an amplifier is generally used. The main problem of the conventional transformer is that it occupies a very large chip area, which causes high cost. For some large-scale millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuit chips, such as phased arrays, the main area is occupied by a transformer. In other words, the transformer is a major source of chip area cost.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the application provides an integrated inductive device, which can reduce the occupied area and the circuit cost.

An embodiment of the present application provides an integrated inductive device, which may include: a multi-level inductive device;

at least two inductive devices of adjacent stages of the multi-stage inductive devices are folded.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, at least one of the inductive devices of two adjacent stages folded onto each other is arranged in a symmetric structure;

the symmetric structure transforms the magnetic flux of the inductive device arranged in the symmetric structure into a plurality of equal and opposite parts.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, the symmetrical structure may be an 8-word structure.

In exemplary embodiments of the present application, the inductive devices of two adjacent stages folded onto each other may be folded up and down, or one inductive device may be placed inside the other inductive device.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, the input stage inductive means and the output stage inductive means may be comprised in two adjacent stages of inductive means folded onto each other;

wherein the input stage inductive device is placed inside the output stage inductive device.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, the multi-stage inductive device may comprise: a multi-stage transformer or a multi-stage inductor.

An embodiment of the present application provides an amplifier, which may include: the integrated inductive device of any of the preceding claims.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, the amplifier may further include a transistor;

the integrated inductive device may be a multi-stage transformer, which is disposed at a load end of the transistor.

In exemplary embodiments of the present application, the amplifier may be a one-stage amplifier or a multi-stage amplifier.

In contrast to the related art, the embodiments of the present application may include a multi-stage inductive device; at least two inductive devices of adjacent stages of the multi-stage inductive devices are folded. Through the scheme of the embodiment, the occupied area is greatly reduced, and the circuit cost is reduced.

Additional features and advantages of embodiments of the present application will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by the practice of the present application. Other advantages of the present application may be realized and attained by the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the specification and the drawings.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings are included to provide an understanding of the present disclosure and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the disclosure and together with the examples serve to explain the principles of the disclosure and not to limit the disclosure.

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an integrated inductive device according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a partial structure of an amplifier transformer according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram showing a transformer part of an amplifier in the related art.

Detailed Description

The present application describes embodiments, but the description is illustrative rather than limiting and it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that many more embodiments and implementations are possible within the scope of the embodiments described herein. Although many possible combinations of features are shown in the drawings and discussed in the detailed description, many other combinations of the disclosed features are possible. Any feature or element of any embodiment may be used in combination with or instead of any other feature or element in any other embodiment, unless expressly limited otherwise.

The present application includes and contemplates combinations of features and elements known to those of ordinary skill in the art. The embodiments, features and elements disclosed in this application may also be combined with any conventional features or elements to form a unique inventive concept as defined by the claims. Any feature or element of any embodiment may also be combined with features or elements from other inventive aspects to form yet another unique inventive aspect, as defined by the claims. Thus, it should be understood that any of the features shown and/or discussed in this application may be implemented alone or in any suitable combination. Accordingly, the embodiments are not limited except as by the appended claims and their equivalents. Furthermore, various modifications and changes may be made within the scope of the appended claims.

Further, in describing representative embodiments, the specification may have presented the method and/or process as a particular sequence of steps. However, to the extent that the method or process does not rely on the particular order of steps set forth herein, the method or process should not be limited to the particular sequence of steps described. Other orders of steps are possible as will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, the particular order of the steps set forth in the specification should not be construed as limitations on the claims. Further, the claims directed to the method and/or process should not be limited to the performance of their steps in the order written, and one skilled in the art can readily appreciate that the sequences may be varied and still remain within the spirit and scope of the embodiments of the present application.

An embodiment of the present application provides an integrated inductive device, which may include: a multi-stage inductive device 1;

at least two adjacent stages of the multi-stage inductive means 1, such as 11 and 12 in fig. 1, are folded.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, the multi-stage inductive device 1 may comprise: a multi-stage transformer or a multi-stage inductor.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, at least one of the inductive devices 1 of two adjacent stages folded onto each other is arranged in a symmetric structure;

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, for an inductive device, such as a transformer, the design of the symmetric structure may transform the magnetic flux of the transformer into at least two portions of equal and opposite directions, such that there is no coupling between the input and output matching network transformers.

In the exemplary embodiment of the present application, the structure is simple and easy to implement.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, the symmetrical structure may also be a structure formed by folding the upper and lower portions of the 8-shaped structure again.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, the structure may be such that at least two transformers may be placed inside one transformer.

In the exemplary embodiments of the present application, the inductive devices of two adjacent stages folded with each other may be folded up and down, or one inductive device may be placed inside the other inductive device.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, the inductive devices 1 of two adjacent stages folded onto each other may comprise input stage inductive devices and output stage inductive devices;

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, for example, one transformer is placed inside another transformer such that the overall footprint of the two transformers is half that of a conventional two-stage transformer.

In the exemplary embodiment of the present application, as shown in fig. 1, an embodiment is given in which when the multi-stage inductive device is a two-stage transformer, one transformer is placed inside the other transformer, and the internal transformer is in a figure-8 structure.

The embodiment of the present application provides an amplifier 2, as shown in fig. 2, which may include: the integrated inductive device 1 according to any of the preceding claims.

In the exemplary embodiment of the present application, a single-stage amplifier is taken as an example, and a specific implementation in which the folding transformer is disposed in the single-stage amplifier is described below. Wherein the single stage amplifier can be generalized to a multi-stage design. In addition, the design of the folding transformer can be popularized to the folding design of the multistage inductor.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, the amplifier 2 may further include a transistor 3;

the integrated inductive device 1 may be a multi-stage transformer (e.g. two-stage transformers 13 and 14) arranged at the load side of the transistor 3.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, the amplifier 2 may be a one-stage amplifier or a multi-stage amplifier.

In the exemplary embodiment of the present application, as shown in fig. 3, is an example of a single-stage amplifier implemented based on a conventional transformer structure. For this amplifier 2, the input and output of the transistor 3 each require a matching network implemented as a transformer, which each occupy the area of a transformer.

In the exemplary embodiment of the present application, as shown in fig. 2, it is an example of a single-stage amplifier implemented based on a folded transformer structure. The input transformer of the input matching network transformer can be placed inside the output transformer by folding the input transformer in a figure 8 manner. Thus, the overall footprint is half the area of a conventional transformer.

In the exemplary embodiment of the present application, the purpose of 8-folding the transformer of a certain stage is to convert the magnetic flux of the transformer into two equal and opposite parts, so that there is no coupling between the input matching network transformer and the output matching network transformer, thereby avoiding the introduction of the coupling of the transformers between different stages.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present application, the coupling between two transformers in a folded transformer structure cannot be completely eliminated, but with a well-symmetrical design, we can reduce the coupling as much as possible to avoid the effect of the coupling on the amplifier, e.g. stability. Also, the coupling provides the advantage that it can extend the gain and bandwidth of the amplifier to some extent, since the coupling acts like a transistor and a capacitor.

In exemplary embodiments of the present application, at least the following advantageous effects are included:

1. compared with the traditional transformer, the millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuit realized by the folding transformer is half of the original area, and for large-scale chip application, the area cost can be greatly reduced, and the overall cost of the millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuit is reduced.

2. The adjacent stage transformers are folded, and the characteristic that the magnetic fluxes in different directions are offset positively and negatively is utilized to fold the transformer of a certain stage into a symmetrical 8 shape, so that the coupling of the transformers between different stages is avoided.

3. For an amplifier, a folded transformer can provide a wider bandwidth and higher gain than a conventional transformer.

4. Because the transformer area needs to be electromagnetically isolated, the power mesh of the chip can be broken, and the placement position of the bump is limited, so that the occupied area of the transformer in the chip is reduced by folding the transformer, the more complete power mesh can be provided, and the limitation on the placement position of the bump is reduced.

In the exemplary embodiment of the present application, the above discussed advantages are of great benefit to the need for large-scale application of the transformer (inductor) structure 5G communication chip.

It will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that all or some of the steps of the methods, systems, functional modules/units in the devices disclosed above may be implemented as software, firmware, hardware, and suitable combinations thereof. In a hardware implementation, the division between functional modules/units mentioned in the above description does not necessarily correspond to the division of physical components; for example, one physical component may have multiple functions, or one function or step may be performed by several physical components in cooperation. Some or all of the components may be implemented as software executed by a processor, such as a digital signal processor or microprocessor, or as hardware, or as an integrated circuit, such as an application specific integrated circuit. Such software may be distributed on computer readable media, which may include computer storage media (or non-transitory media) and communication media (or transitory media). The term computer storage media includes volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data, as is well known to those of ordinary skill in the art. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, Digital Versatile Disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by a computer. In addition, communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media as known to those skilled in the art.

Claims

1. An integrated inductive device, comprising: a multi-level inductive device;

at least two adjacent stages of inductive devices in the multi-stage inductive devices are folded; at least one inductive device of two adjacent stages folded with each other is arranged in a symmetrical structure;

the symmetrical structure enables the magnetic flux of the inductive device arranged in the symmetrical structure to be converted into a plurality of parts with equal size and opposite directions;

the symmetrical structure is formed by folding the upper part and the lower part of the 8-shaped structure again.

2. The integrated inductive device according to claim 1, wherein two inductive devices of adjacent stages folded onto each other are folded up and down or one inductive device is placed inside the other inductive device.

3. The integrated inductive device according to claim 2, wherein the inductive devices of two adjacent stages folded onto each other comprise input stage inductive devices and output stage inductive devices;

4. The integrated inductive device according to any of the claims 1 to 3, wherein the multi-stage inductive device is: a multi-stage transformer or a multi-stage inductor.

5. An amplifier, comprising: the integrated inductive device according to any of the claims 1 to 4.

6. The amplifier of claim 5, further comprising a transistor;

the integrated inductive device is a multi-stage transformer, and the multi-stage transformer is arranged at the load end of the transistor.

7. The amplifier of claim 5, wherein the amplifier is a one-stage amplifier or a multi-stage amplifier.