Give it a try please
echo CHtml::tag('i', array('id'=>'idTextField','width'=>100,'maxlength'=>100), 'Text');
PS: I'm not sure what are you trying to achive by giving it width
and maxlength
but they are not the valid attributes for <i />
tag
I'll suggest you to rather use <em>
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_em.asp