Design and application of a CMOS active inductor at Ku band based on a multi-objective optimizer

This paper presents a new design of a grounded active inductor (AI) with an improved topology based on Manetakis regulated cascode active inductor comprising of three control voltages for tunability. An additional pMOST was introduced in the design as a drain load at the output of nMOST source follower. The aim of this work is to design a CMOS AI at Ku band using AIDA-C, a state-of-the-art multi-objective multi-constraint circuit-level optimization tool. Firstly, a reasonable AI operating at Ku band was manually designed using a 130 nm technology. This circuit and its design variables were fed to AIDA-C as an element of the initial population. Then the sizing of the proposed AI MOSTs was optimized. AIDA-C circuit sizing tool is able to achieve not only one but a set of solutions for the AI exhibiting high quality factor at a predefined Ku band operating frequency. This set of alternative Pareto optimal solutions enables the designer to choose the most suitable circuit sizing for a given application. AI's main performance parameters in terms of s parameters (s11), quality factor (Q), inductance value (L), linearity, noise figure, power consumption and tunability based on control and biasing voltages are presented. Layout of the optimized AI is also presented. This AI was used to design active filters. Their selectivity, insertion losses and noise analysis is presented and discussed.