Patent 7531893 was granted and assigned to Texas Instruments on May, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An electronic device (100) with one or more semiconductor chips (102) has an inductor (101) assembled on or under the chips. The inductor includes a ferromagnetic body (111) and a wire (104) wrapped around the body to form at least a portion of a loop; the wire ends (104a) are connected to the chips. The assembly is attached to a substrate (103), which may be a leadframe. The device may be encapsulated in molding compound (140) so that the inductor can double as a heat spreader (111c), enhancing the thermal device characteristics.