ices to handle more complex tasks, such as video streaming. Concurrently, lower power consumption leads to extended battery life for the same kinds of devices. As the wireless industry expands, device manufacturers need better mixed- signal chips, combining digital and analog processing, to support both com- puting applications and high-frequency communications applications. The new chip design, developed by Ghavam Shahidi and colleagues at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, uses a novel type of wafer that's thin enough to maximize the performance of both the com- puting and communications components. Complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) chips provide the current foundation for computing applications. Silicon germanium (SiGe) bipolar chips are commonly used to provide radio frequency communications and analog functions. To improve the reliability of wireless devices, chip man- ufacturers create SiGe BiCMOS chips that place computing and communica- tions transistors onto one chip instead of using separate chips for computing and communications applications. CMOS computing chips show higher performance when built on top of a thin silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. However, traditional SiGe bipolar tran- sistors cannot be built on a thin SOI wafer. Until IBM's breakthrough, no one had been able to find a technique to combine CMOS and SiGe bipolar onto one wafer that would maximize the performance of both. The IBM researchers are the first to build SiGe bipolar using a thin SOI wafer, thereby paving the way to build SiGe bipolar and CMOS on the same thin SOI wafer, maximiz- ing the performance of both the computing and communications functions. "As the wireless industry continues to grow, new devices will require greater functionalities, performance, and reliability from their components," says T.C. Chen, vice president of science and technology for IBM Research. "IBM con- tinues to find new methods to improve chips to ensure that the industry can meet consumer demands. The