Method of manufacturing laminated magnetic core inductor with insulating and interface layers
AssigneeFerric Inc.
InventorsNoah Sturcken, Ryan Davies, Michael Lekas
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An inductor includes a planar laminated magnetic core and a conductive winding. The planar magnetic core includes an alternating sequence of a magnetic layer and a non-magnetic layer. The non-magnetic layer includes an insulating layer that is disposed between first and second interface layers. The conductive winding turns around in a generally spiral manner on the outside of the planar laminated magnetic core. The inductor can be integrated into a multilevel wiring network in a semiconductor integrated circuit to form a microelectronic device, such as a transformer, a power converter, or a microprocessor.
Claims16
A method of manufacturing comprising:
- depositing a magnetic material over a semiconductor substrate to form a magnetic layer, wherein at least a portion of a multilevel wiring network is formed on the semiconductor substrate;
- in a physical vapor deposition (PVD) chamber, depositing a non-magnetic layer on the magnetic layer, wherein said non-magnetic layer is formed by:
- depositing an interface material to form a first interface layer on the magnetic layer;
- flowing a reactive gas into the PVD chamber, while continuing to deposit the interface material, to form an insulating material on the first interface layer, the insulating layer comprising a compound of the interface material and the reactive gas;
- and
- stopping the reactive gas flow into the PVD chamber, while continuing to deposit the interface material, to form a second interface layer on the insulating layer;
- repeating in alternate fashion, up to 100 times each, (a) the depositing of the magnetic material and (b) the depositing of the non-magnetic layer to form an alternating sequence of magnetic layers and non-magnetic layers;
- depositing the magnetic material on the last non-magnetic layer in the sequence to form a final magnetic layer, resulting in a magnetic member with a laminated configuration;
- masking and patterning said magnetic member in such a manner that after said patterning a remaining portion of said magnetic member comprises a planar magnetic core;
- and
- forming a conductive winding around the planar magnetic core, the conductive winding comprising wire segments and vertical interconnect accesses (VIAs), wherein said wire segments pertain to at least two wiring planes in said multilevel wiring network and said VIAs interconnect the at least two wiring planes.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.