This paper presents the first detailed comparative study of the RF power potential of the various device options offered in a state-of-the-art 90 nm CMOS foundry technology. We show that at a constant voltage of 1 V, the nominal 90 nm thin gate-oxide logic devices offer the best performance, at Vdd = 1 V and 2.2 GHz showing over 20 dBm of output power and 59% PAE, as well as a power density of 34 mW/mm and 59% PAE at 8 GHz. If the operating voltage can be selected, 250 nm long thick gate-oxide I/O devices offer the highest power and efficiency at 2.5 V. However, when reliability considerations are included, the 90 nm digital devices outperform the 250 nm I/O devices. Overall, we find that the RF power performance of 90 nm CMOS exceeds the requirements for power amplifiers in a large variety of wireless high volume applications.
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