OPTIMIZATION OF SPIRAL INDUCTORS AND LC RESONATORS EXPLOITING SPACE MAPPING TECHNOLOGY To my parents OPTIMIZATION OF SPIRAL INDUCTORS AND LC RESONATORS EXPLOITING SPACE MAPPING TECHNOLOGY

This thesis contributes to the computer-aided design (CAD) of spiral inductors and LC resonators with spiral inductors exploiting full-wave electromagnetic (EM) analysis. The spiral inductor is widely used in radio frequency integrated circuits (RF ICs), such as low noise amplifiers (LNA) and voltage controlled oscillators (VCO). The design of spiral inductors has a direct influence on the performance of these circuits. Recently proposed optimization methods for spiral inductors are usually based on circuit models, which are computationally efficient but inaccurate compared with full-wave electromagnetic (EM) simulations. For the first time, we develop an optimization technique for the design of spiral inductors and LC resonators exploiting both the computational efficiency of a (cheap) circuit model and the accuracy of a full-wave EM analysis, based on geometric programming (GP) and space mapping (SM). With the new technique, we can efficiently obtain EM-validated designs with considerable improvement over those obtained with traditional optimization methods. ABSTRACT iv v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT