There have been numerous proposals for use of metal–oxide materials as an alternative to semiconductors in field-effect transistors (FET), as current Si FET technology inevitably encounters intrinsic scaling limitations. We report on device-independent power–delay characteristics of potential VO 2 -based field induced Mott transistors and compare scaling limits to that of Si. Since the critical electric field for metal–insulator transition (MIT) in VO 2 is similar to the breakdown field of Si, and due to the inherent possibility of further scaling along one direction in VO 2 , both materials exhibit similar lower bounds on switching energy. MIT in VO 2 results in free carrier concentration several orders of magnitude larger than that of Si, easily overcoming the carrier transit time limits of conventional semiconductor MOSFETs. VO 2 switching speed is constrained by the kinetics of the phase transition and more importantly limited thermal dissipation. Our simple model predicts an intrinsic VO 2 material lower bound switching time of the order of 0.5ps at a power transfer of 0.1μW.