In this study, the authors describe the characterisation of spiral inductors and the design of a novel semi-stacked spiral inductor based on low-temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC). Owing to its semi-stacked nature, the authors obtained a peak quality factor (Q(max)) of 43.3 and an effective inductance L-eff of 14.41 nH. The authors' LTCC spiral inductor occupies a smaller area when compared with conventional LTCC planar inductors of similar number of turns.