Realiz ing smal l ind u c tor v alue s on a PC B b y u sing mic r o s trip li nes As n eede d fo r e. g. B GA 915 N 7 Applic atio n N ote A N 258 Revision: Rev. 2.0 2011-04-28 RF and P r otecti on D evic es Edition 2011-04-28 Published by Infineon Technologies AG 81726 Munich, Germany © 2011 Infineon Technologies AG All Rights Reserved. Legal Disclaimer The information given in this document shall in no event be regarded as a guarantee of conditions or characteristics. With respect to any examples or hints given herein, any typical values stated herein and/or any information regarding the application of the device, Infineon Technologies hereby disclaims any and all warranties and liabilities of any kind, including without limitation, warranties of non-infringement of intellectual property rights of any third party. Information For further information on technology, delivery terms and conditions and prices, please contact the nearest Infineon Technologies Office (www.infineon.com). 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Last Trademarks Update 2009-10-19 Application Note AN258, Rev. 2.0 3 / 15 2011-04-28 Inductance of microstrip lines List of Content, Figures and Tables Table of Content 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 5 2 2.1 Microstrip lines used as shunt inductors ........................................................................................ 5 Characteristic impedance of microstrip lines ....................................................................................... 6 3 Inductance of different line widths for fixed thickness of substrate ............................................ 7 4 Inductance of lines on different substrates with fixed line widths ............................................. 10 5 Inductance of vias ............................................................................................................................ 12 Author ................................................................................................................................................ 14 List of Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10 Figure 11 Figure 12 Figure 13 Figure 14 Figure 15 Cross section of a PCB ........................................................................................................................ 6 Inductance vs. length: Substrate thickness = 40µm ............................................................................ 7 Inductance vs. length: Substrate thickness = 80µm ............................................................................ 7 Inductance vs. length: Substrate thickness = 120µm .......................................................................... 8 Inductance vs. length: Substrate thickness = 150µm .......................................................................... 8 Inductance vs. length: Substrate thickness = 200µm .......................................................................... 9 Inductance vs. length: Substrate thickness = 250µm .......................................................................... 9 Inductance vs. length: Line width = 0.1mm. ....................................................................................... 10 Inductance vs. length: Line width = 0.12mm. ..................................................................................... 10 Inductance vs. length: Line width = 0.15mm. ..................................................................................... 11 Inductance vs. length: Line width = 0.2mm ........................................................................................ 11 Example of a via hole including dimensions ...................................................................................... 12 Via inductance vs. thickness of dielectric: 100 µm ring width ............................................................ 12 Via inductance vs. thickness of dielectric: 150 µm ring width ............................................................ 13 Via inductance vs. thickness of dielectric: 200 µm ring width ............................................................ 13 List of Tables No table entries found. Application Note AN258, Rev. 2.0 4 / 15 2011-04-28 Inductance of microstrip lines Introduction 1 Introduction The use of distributed microstrip circuit elements is very common at microwave frequencies. At those high frequencies convertional lumped SMD-elements can not work anymore as their desired performance as an inductor or capacitor is outweighed by the unavoidable parasitic of such a device. The principles of microstrip circuit design with distributed elements apply also to lower frequencies where lumped elements still work as they are supposed. Microstrip elements can become quite big at those frequencies and therefore use up a lot of PCB space. Despite this they still can be very useful, especially to realize small inductance values which are not available as SMD elements, as most suppliers offer 1 nH coils as the smallest value in their line-up. The inductance values presented in this application note were derived from simulations using frequencies around 1575 MHz. 2 Microstrip lines used as shunt inductors A microstrip transmission line involves inductance associated with the flow of current in the conductor and capacitance associated with the strip separated from ground by the dielectric substrate. This distributed inductance and capacitance is the basis of the classic L-C model for a transmission line and it accounts for the term “distributed”. If the line is narrow, the capacitance is small. A narrow, high impedance line behaves like an inductor if it is less than 90 degrees in electrical length. A wide, low-impedance line looks capacitive. The impedance, ZS, at the input of a transmission line of characteristic impedance Z0 and length terminated in a load, ZL, is given by: Considering the case where ZL is a short. Then Since the input impedance of a shorted inductor is jXL, This means that the reactance of an inductor in a network may be replaced with a transmission line of characteristic impedance Z0 and length . This equivalence is exact only at the design frequency. The reactance of an inductor increases linearly with increasing frequency while the reactance of a shorted line increases as tan . If the line is short, that is << 90°, then tan and the input reactance of a shorted line increases linearly with frequency. Therefore, a shorted line behaves like an inductor over a range of frequencies where the line is much less than 90° long, preferably less than 30°. Generally, the equivalence is better with higher impedance and shorter length lines for inductors, and with lower impedance and shorter length lines for capacitors. To realize a shorted microstrip transmission line it is necessary to use one or more vias to connect the line to the GND plane. These vias possess a parasitic inductance that has to be considered to get the total inductance of the microstrip line under examination. Application Note AN258, Rev. 2.0 5 / 15 2011-04-28 Inductance of microstrip lines Microstrip lines used as shunt inductors 2.1 Characteristic impedance of microstrip lines As seen in the previous section it is necessary to know the length and characteristic impedance of a line to determine its equivalent inductance. The closed-form expression for the characteristic impedance, Z0, of a microstrip line as shown in Figure 1, 1 assuming zero strip thickness (t = 0), is given as : with and where err is the effective dielectric constant of the microstrip structure. The equations show that the characteristic impedance is determined strongly by the ratio h / W of substrate height to line width. The effective dielectric constant eff plays some role, as well, but simulations to create the curves in chapter 3 and chapter 4 have shown that this influence can be neglected for the geometries covered in this application note. These simulations based on a dielectric constant r of 4.2. Changing this value from 2 to 6 had no effect on the equivalent inductance. Figure 1 1 Cross section of a PCB E. O. Hammerstad and O. Jensen, “Accurate Models for Microstrip Computer-Aided Design,” 1980 IEEE MTT-S Digest, pp. 407–409 Application Note AN258, Rev. 2.0 6 / 15 2011-04-28 Inductance of microstrip lines Inductance of different line widths for fixed thickness of substrate 3 Inductance of different line widths for fixed thickness of substrate 40 µm dielectric 0.1mm 0.12mm 0.15mm 0.2mm 0.6 Increasing line width Inductance of line [nH] 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 Length of line [mm] Figure 2 Inductance vs. length: Substrate thickness = 40µm 80 µm dielectric 0.1mm 0.12mm 0.15mm 0.2mm 0.6 Increasing line width Inductance of line [nH] 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 Length of line [mm] Figure 3 Inductance vs. length: Substrate thickness = 80µm Application Note AN258, Rev. 2.0 7 / 15 2011-04-28 Inductance of microstrip lines Inductance of different line widths for fixed thickness of substrate 120 µm dielectric 0.1mm 0.12mm 0.15mm 0.2mm 0.55 Increasing line width 0.5 Inductance of line [nH] 0.45 0.4 0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 Length of line [mm] Figure 4 Inductance vs. length: Substrate thickness = 120µm 150 µm dielectric 0.1mm 0.12mm 0.15mm 0.2mm 0.55 Increasing line width 0.5 Inductance of line [nH] 0.45 0.4 0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 Length of line [mm] Figure 5 Inductance vs. length: Substrate thickness = 150µm Application Note AN258, Rev. 2.0 8 / 15 2011-04-28 Inductance of microstrip lines Inductance of different line widths for fixed thickness of substrate 200 µm dielectric 0.1mm 0.12mm 0.15mm 0.2mm 0.6 Increasing line width 0.55 Inductance of line [nH] 0.5 0.45 0.4 0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 Length of line [mm] Figure 6 Inductance vs. length: Substrate thickness = 200µm 250 µm dielectric 0.1mm 0.12mm 0.15mm 0.2mm 0.6 Increasing line width 0.55 Inductance of line [nH] 0.5 0.45 0.4 0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 Length of line [mm] Figure 7 Inductance vs. length: Substrate thickness = 250µm Application Note AN258, Rev. 2.0 9 / 15 2011-04-28 Inductance of microstrip lines Inductance of lines on different substrates with fixed line widths 4 Inductance of lines on different substrates with fixed line widths Line width: 0.1mm 40um dielectric 80um dielectric 120um dielectric 150um dielectric 200um dielectric 250um dielectric 0.6 Inductance of line [nH] 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 Thickness of diecectric 0.1 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 Length of line [mm] Figure 8 Inductance vs. length: Line width = 0.1mm. Line width: 0.12mm 40um dielectric 80um dielectric 120um dielectric 150um dielectric 200um dielectric 250um dielectric 0.6 Inductance of line [nH] 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 Thickness of diecectric 0.1 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 Length of line [mm] Figure 9 Inductance vs. length: Line width = 0.12mm. Application Note AN258, Rev. 2.0 10 / 15 2011-04-28 Inductance of microstrip lines Inductance of lines on different substrates with fixed line widths Line width: 0.15mm 40um dielectric 80um dielectric 120um dielectric 150um dielectric 200um dielectric 250um dielectric 0.6 Inductance of line [nH] 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 Thickness of diecectric 0.1 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 Length of line [mm] Figure 10 Inductance vs. length: Line width = 0.15mm. Line width: 0.2mm 40um dielectric 80um dielectric 120um dielectric 150um dielectric 200um dielectric 250um dielectric 0.6 Inductance of line [nH] 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 Thickness of diecectric 0.1 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 Length of line [mm] Figure 11 Inductance vs. length: Line width = 0.2mm Application Note AN258, Rev. 2.0 11 / 15 2011-04-28 Inductance of microstrip lines Inductance of vias 5 Inductance of vias Figure 12 shows a via hole including the via pad. In this case the diameter of the via hole is 200 µm, this application note shows inductance values for via diameters of 0.1 mm, 0.15 mm and 0.2 mm. The pad of the via here is 500 µm, but many PCB manufacturers refer in their design rules rather to the rest ring width, in this example 150µm. So do we in this document, because the ring width stays constant for different hole diameters while the pad diameter would change, making the depiction of parameterized curves difficult. 150 um 200 um 500 um 150 um Figure 12 Example of a via hole including dimensions 100µm Ring 0.1mm 0.15mm 0.2mm 160 140 Inductance of Via (pH) 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 Thickness of Dielectric (µm) Figure 13 Via inductance vs. thickness of dielectric: 100 µm ring width Application Note AN258, Rev. 2.0 12 / 15 2011-04-28 Inductance of microstrip lines Inductance of vias 150µm Ring 0.1mm 0.15mm 0.2mm 160 140 Inductance of Via (pH) 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 250 300 Thickness of Dielectric (µm) Figure 14 Via inductance vs. thickness of dielectric: 150 µm ring width 200µm Ring 0.1mm 0.15mm 0.2mm 160 140 Inductance of Via (pH) 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 50 100 150 200 Thickness of Dielectric (µm) Figure 15 Via inductance vs. thickness of dielectric: 200 µm ring width Application Note AN258, Rev. 2.0 13 / 15 2011-04-28 Inductance of microstrip lines Author Author Dietmar Stolz, Staff Application Engineer of Business Unit “RF and Protection Devices” Application Note AN258, Rev. 2.0 14 / 15 2011-04-28 w w w . i n f i n e o n . c o m Published by Infineon Technologies AG AN258