Analysis of scalable two‐π equivalent‐circuit model for on‐chip spiral inductors

High‐accuracy inductor model is vital for the success of RF/mm‐wave circuit design. In this article, the development of two‐π scalable model with four ladder skin effect structure has been described in detail. For the scalable compact circuit modeling, a set of formulas by which all of the compact circuit elements can be calculated according to the components geometric dimensions and process parameters will be given. The proposed modeling method is regarded as full scalable as all the component parameters are calculated by physical equations or revise equations. A series of spiral inductors with various geometries have been fabricated with 0.13 μm SiGe BiCMOS aluminum process to verify the model. Excellent agreements are obtained between the measured data and calculation form the proposed model up to frequencies above self‐resonant. This scalable 28‐element two‐π model enables to accurately characterize RF behaviors of on‐chip spiral inductors and optimize the inductor performance. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:93–100, 2015.