RF power potential of 45 nm CMOS technology

This paper presents the first measurements of the RF power performance of 45 nm CMOS devices with varying device widths and layouts. We find that 45 nm CMOS can deliver a peak output power density of around 140 mW/mm with a peak power-added efficiency (PAE) of 70% at 1.1 V. The PAE and P_out decrease with increasing device width because of a decrease in the maximum oscillation frequency (f_max) for large width devices. The PAE also decreases with increasing frequency because of a decrease in gain as the operating frequency approaches f_max. The RF power performance of 45 nm devices is shown to be very similar to that of 65 nm devices.