4 ms·
Does anyone know what the two horseshoe looking things are in the bottom left of the RTR8600 die? I want to say inductors, but they aren't in the shapes I'm fam
by tcas 14y ago
Does anyone know what the two horseshoe looking things are in the bottom left of the RTR8600 die? I want to say inductors, but they aren't in the shapes I'm familiar with (that being said, my VLSI knowledge is extremely rusty)
- sparky 14y agoYep, the horseshoe inductor is a degenerate (single-loop) case of the spiral inductor.
- Osiris 14y agoThanks! That clears things right up (</sarcasm> I have no idea what at least three of those things are).
- sparky 14y agoSorry, wasn't trying to be obtuse, just concise. * An inductor is a primitive circuit element, like a resistor or capacitor. An ideal inductor maintains the relationship V = L x dI/dt, where V is the voltage across the 2 terminals of the inductor, I is the current through the inductor, and L is the inductance. * The simplest inductor is a coil of wire. You've probably seen ones that look like this ( http://www.electronicplus.com/images/products/387268.jpg http://www.electronicplus.com/images/products/387268.jpg ) on motherboards, power supplies, etc. Inductors are used in power supplies all the time, but also in clocking-related circuits, filters, and other components used in RF devices like the chip referenced in the article. * In the context of a planar CMOS chip, you can't really build a 3D torus like that, so you build a 2D spiral that approximates a coil ( http://bmf.ece.queensu.ca/mediawiki/index.php/Spiral_Inductor_Design http://bmf.ece.queensu.ca/mediawiki/index.php/Spiral_Inducto... ). That's called a spiral inductor. * The horseshoe inductor is just a spiral inductor that only has one loop, and is consequently shaped like a horseshoe. Designers vary the size, spacing, number, and geometry of loops depending on the inductance, parasitic resistance/capacitance, material properties, etc.