An Area-Efficient High-Q Adjacent Stack Zigzag-Polygonal On- Chip Inductor Using Customized Metal Stacking in TSMC 180-nm Technology

An Area-Efficient High-Q Adjacent Stack Zigzag-Polygonal On- Chip Inductor Using Customized Metal Stacking in TSMC 180-nm Technology | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article An Area-Efficient High-Q Adjacent Stack Zigzag-Polygonal On- Chip Inductor Using Customized Metal Stacking in TSMC 180-nm Technology Naveen Manchala, Bheema Rao Nistala This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8777733/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 9 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract On-chip inductors implemented using regular metal stacking generally suffer fromlow inductance and poor quality factor at millimeter-wave frequencies. In this work,a zigzag polygonal inductor is proposed by adding a metal layer in parallel with theexisting metal stack of TSMC 180nm technology, which results in an increase of 43%and 155% in inductance and Q-factor, respectively. To further increase the inductanceperformance, an adjacent stacked configuration is proposed where the bottom inductoris placed adjacent to the top inductor. This configuration reduces the parasiticcapacitance, resulting in improved Q and L. The adjacent stack zigzag polygonalinductor achieves a 3.78-times increase in inductance and 8.3% increase in Q over thezigzag polygonal inductor with a 4.6% area overhead at 30 GHz. The proposedinductor, when compared to the recent designs, gives better Q with a significantlycompact footprint. To validate the performance of the inductor, an LC band-pass filter(BPF) is designed, yielding an insertion loss of 0.35 dB and a noise figure of 0.33 dB.When compared to the recent works, this filter gives better performance with highcompactness in the on-chip area. These results validate that the proposed inductor isa viable and area-efficient solution for space-constrained, high-frequency 5G RFfront-ends. 5G Cadence Virtuoso EM Solver On-chip inductor Polygonal inductor Stacking Zigzag. Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 20 Mar, 2026 Reviews received at journal 04 Mar, 2026 Reviews received at journal 19 Feb, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 10 Feb, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 08 Feb, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 06 Feb, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 05 Feb, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 04 Feb, 2026 First submitted to journal 03 Feb, 2026 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8777733","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":589055205,"identity":"2783c9cb-30f3-457b-83fe-044945f3f164","order_by":0,"name":"Naveen Manchala","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"","institution":"National Institute of Technology Warangal","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Naveen","middleName":"","lastName":"Manchala","suffix":""},{"id":589055206,"identity":"37f29105-4cc6-4917-bb75-f2a3aa49b888","order_by":1,"name":"Bheema Rao Nistala","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"National Institute of Technology Warangal","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Bheema","middleName":"Rao","lastName":"Nistala","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-02-03 15:24:19","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8777733/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8777733/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":102745817,"identity":"523d861e-2fa0-4af5-9cd1-51bba46742c4","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-16 08:54:11","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":16948453,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"MicroSyst.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8777733/v1_covered_6b885349-e056-42cf-9092-73931a38ef0f.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"An Area-Efficient High-Q Adjacent Stack Zigzag-Polygonal On- Chip Inductor Using Customized Metal Stacking in TSMC 180-nm Technology","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"microsystem-technologies","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"mite","sideBox":"Learn more about [Microsystem Technologies](http://link.springer.com/journal/542)","snPcode":"542","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/542/3","title":"Microsystem Technologies","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"5G, Cadence Virtuoso, EM Solver, On-chip inductor, Polygonal inductor, Stacking, Zigzag.","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8777733/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8777733/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eOn-chip inductors implemented using regular metal stacking generally suffer fromlow inductance and poor quality factor at millimeter-wave frequencies. In this work,a zigzag polygonal inductor is proposed by adding a metal layer in parallel with theexisting metal stack of TSMC 180nm technology, which results in an increase of 43%and 155% in inductance and Q-factor, respectively. To further increase the inductanceperformance, an adjacent stacked configuration is proposed where the bottom inductoris placed adjacent to the top inductor. This configuration reduces the parasiticcapacitance, resulting in improved Q and L. The adjacent stack zigzag polygonalinductor achieves a 3.78-times increase in inductance and 8.3% increase in Q over thezigzag polygonal inductor with a 4.6% area overhead at 30 GHz. The proposedinductor, when compared to the recent designs, gives better Q with a significantlycompact footprint. To validate the performance of the inductor, an LC band-pass filter(BPF) is designed, yielding an insertion loss of 0.35 dB and a noise figure of 0.33 dB.When compared to the recent works, this filter gives better performance with highcompactness in the on-chip area. These results validate that the proposed inductor isa viable and area-efficient solution for space-constrained, high-frequency 5G RFfront-ends.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"An Area-Efficient High-Q Adjacent Stack Zigzag-Polygonal On- Chip Inductor Using Customized Metal Stacking in TSMC 180-nm Technology","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-02-11 13:33:13","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8777733/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"decision","content":"Revision requested","date":"2026-03-20T04:59:02+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-03-04T07:28:10+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-02-19T06:29:37+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"318288329610132628969248966874139920506","date":"2026-02-10T14:45:05+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"297113952245098785980284441929161264102","date":"2026-02-09T02:24:31+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2026-02-06T11:08:12+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2026-02-05T08:04:32+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2026-02-04T11:54:14+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Microsystem Technologies","date":"2026-02-03T15:19:20+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"microsystem-technologies","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"mite","sideBox":"Learn more about [Microsystem Technologies](http://link.springer.com/journal/542)","snPcode":"542","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/542/3","title":"Microsystem Technologies","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"ec4680b8-a48c-427f-ae81-ad3dba189a88","owner":[],"postedDate":"February 11th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-03-30T17:08:07+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-02-11 13:33:13","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8777733","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8777733","identity":"rs-8777733","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}