IBM says its latest chip could boost wireless data transfer to ten times the current capacity.

The silicon-germanium chip uses an unlicensed section of the radio spectrum. There have been previous attempts to exploit the 30-300GHz wavelength bands, but they've been hampered by cost, size and difficulty integrating with other chips.

The chip includes transmitter, receiver and two antennas in a package the size of a dime.

Related stories

• IBM bids for personal area network crown
• AMD Socket M2 spotted on Nvidia-based MSI mobo
• Nvidia tweaks nForce 4 SLI x16 drivers
• Intel's loss was VIA's gain in 2005 desktop graphics biz
• Sony to ship dual-GPU, dual-core Vaio mid-March
• ATI licenses HDMI technology
• What's standing at Intel's platform

Big Blue says the chips could be used to set up personal-area networks - working at less than ten metres. The technology could also be used for beaming uncompressed video content to a flat-screen display.

A report on this work will be presented tomorrow at San Francisco's Solid State Circuits conference.

Naked chip pictures available here. ®