RF CMOS

Abidi's work was initially met with skepticism from proponents of GaAs and bipolar junction transistors, the dominant technologies for high-speed communication circuits at the time.

In 1985 he joined the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he pioneered RF CMOS technology during the late 1980s to early 1990s.

[13] In the late 1990s, RF CMOS technology was widely adopted in wireless networking, as mobile phones began entering widespread use.

[14] There was a rapid growth of the telecommunications industry towards the end of the 20th century, primarily due to the introduction of digital signal processing in wireless communications, driven by the development of low-cost, very large-scale integration (VLSI) RF CMOS technology.

[18] In the early 2000s, RF CMOS chips with deep sub-micron MOSFETs capable of over 100 GHz frequency range were demonstrated.

[14] RF CMOS circuits are widely used to transmit and receive wireless signals, in a variety of applications, such as satellite technology (including GPS and GPS receivers), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, near-field communication (NFC), mobile networks (such as 3G and 4G), terrestrial broadcast, and automotive radar applications, among other uses.

Die shot of a Broadcom BCM2050KMLG, an RF CMOS chip used as a WiFi 802.11g transceiver. [ 1 ] Notice the octagon-like, spiral-like structures, which can act as inductors [ 2 ] transformers and baluns . [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ]
Die shot of a Marvell 88W8010 WiFi 802.11g transceiver. It has both octagon-like and square-like, spiral-like structures that can also be used as inductors. [ 6 ]
Asad Ali Abidi developed RF CMOS technology at UCLA during the late 1980s to early 1990s.
The ESP32 is an example of a chip combining RF CMOS with digital logic, which in this case is one or two processor cores that are hidden.