IBM, the worlds largest computer-maker, said in a news release that its "silicon-on-insulator" or SOI technology is a key advance in chip technology that will allow the development of more powerful voice-recognition software, smaller cell phones with much longer-lasting batteries and entire new classes of portable devices for accessing the Internet.

SOI, which comes just 11 months after IBMs previous microchip breakthrough -- the copper chip -- can require as little as on third of the power used by current chips, IBM said.

"We believe SOI, with its high-performance and low-power characteristics, is a significant breakthrough in chip technology," said IBM micrelectronics division general manager Mike Attardo in a statement. "Like our copper chips, SOI will accelerate theindustrys constant drive to create smaller, more powerful, less expensive electronic goods."

The SOI process protects the millions of transistors on a chip with a blanket of insulation, which protects it from electrical effects that ciphon of energy and hinder performance, IBM said. For instance, a microprocessor designed to operate at 400 MHz but built with SOI technology could achieve operating speeds greater than 500 MHz.

IBM said it has the chips in pilot production in East Fishkill, N.Y., and it will introduce the technology on its high-volume manufacturing lines in Burlington, Vt., in the first half of 1999. It will incorporate SOI into a wide range of semiconductors, including its merchant market custom chip products, such standard products as the PowerPC, and in chips used in its S/390, AS/400 and Rs./6000 line of servers.