《09 Nanogranular Magnetic Core Inductors- Design》.pdf

Chapter 9 Nanogranular Magnetic Core Inductors: Design, Fabrication, and Packaging Gopal C. Jha , Swapan K. Bhattacharya(*ü ), and Rao R. Tummala 9.1 Introduction Technological advances often lead to a transition when the vision of the past no longer remains a vision and becomes the demand of the present. Miniaturized, cost-effective, and mega functional devices are the present day’s demand. With Moore’s law driving the miniaturization of active devices, passive components have been left behind. As the trend continues toward miniaturization, electronic industries are experiencing an immense demand for miniaturized and more efficient passive components. Presently, high-end electronic devices are composed of almost 90% passive components, taking up almost 70% of the total board area [1 , 2] . Inductors are important passive elements readily used in military, communication, automotive, computer, and other portable devices. They are of utmost importance for high fre- quency applications, especially in wireless/radio communication devices. “Inductor” is a generic term for components having specific inductance that can be used to store energy in the form of a magnetic field [3] . They cover a wide range of applica- tions including DC–DC converters, voltage-controlled oscillators, clocks, filters, power amplifiers, low noise amplifiers, voltage regulator modules, phase-locked loops, and point of load converters. Recently, significant attention has been given to achieve high-quality factor (Q-factor) inductors with significant size