One clear direction for the development of future nanoelectronic devices is low power and high performance at low operating voltage. The fact that CMOS has a subthreshold region and a linear region, and that CMOS circuits operate at Vdd a few times Vt suggest that it is a challenge to reduce CMOS voltage towards 0.5 V. However, there is evidence that SOI lateral bipolar could be a low-power and high-performance technology. SOI lateral bipolar devices using small-gap semiconductors offer a clear path for high performance and low power bipolar circuits at about 0.5 V.