Startup promises to half smartphone power usage, prepares solution for MWC 2013
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A group of MIT engineers spun out into a separate company called Eta Devices, and they claim they have found the recipe for long battery life and that’s a more efficient power amplifier.
Joel Dawson and David Perreault are currently working on the technology in the lab, but the plan is to make it commercial in 2013. The promise is big - battery performance on smartphones could double and LTE base stations might also slash their power footprint by half.
Power amplifiers are built using transistors that basically have a standby and output modes. Efficiency cuts can happen only if you minimize standby power, and to do this Eta has created an electronic gearbox. It picks the minimum appropriate voltage as many as 20 million times each second. Such an approach tackles both the scenario when you send and receive data.
On smartphones, this could result in a single power amplifier regulating what CDMA, GSM and LTE use. In contrast, the current iPhone 5 uses five such amplifiers.
We are first to see Eta’s product at Mobile World Congress this February in Barcelona.
source: Technology Review
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12 Comments
1. ayephoner posted on 01 Nov 2012, 08:07 13
......to be bought by apple within 6 months.
i really hope not. i'd love to buy a phone with really double or triple battery life of my gnex at the end of '13.
2. lyndon420 posted on 01 Nov 2012, 08:09 14
Hopefully they patent the hell out of it before apple claims it's theirs.
3. young0ne posted on 01 Nov 2012, 08:16 6
Sorry but this is going to be an industry standard. So no patents on that for apple or any other OME manufacture. and anyway its own by MIT I don't think they are going to sale it. they'll get more money by keeping it.
5. ayephoner posted on 01 Nov 2012, 08:39 9
this definitely sounds like a patentable idea. and its owned by a private group of MIT engineers, not MIT directly. everyone has a price and apple can afford nearly any of those prices.
i certainly hope apple stays out of this, but you're being naive if you think its outside the realm of possibility.
12. dmckay12 posted on 01 Nov 2012, 18:21 1
You are so right. I hate Toyota Prii (Prius) and most apple products, but if apple wanted m to drive around in a Prius ant tell people how awesome the iPhone was, they could do it.
4. Cyan3boN posted on 01 Nov 2012, 08:27 3
much needed innovation before we lose the lithium ion batteries completely and move towards something slm, less weight still packs the power of 10 li-on batteries. and at the same time leaving a very small carbon footprint.
6. palmguy posted on 01 Nov 2012, 09:07 1
What ever happened to using Lithium Polymer batteries? I thought they were better.
7. jackhuny posted on 01 Nov 2012, 09:19 0
Double the current battery life just isn't enough to call it a solution. Razr Maxx doubles the battery life, but still not a ideal solution to the battery crisis.
8. Nikolas.Oliver posted on 01 Nov 2012, 09:21 3
I can use my nokia 3310 for the next century and the battery won't die
9. TheMan posted on 01 Nov 2012, 09:44 0
I really hope it's soon, but "making it commercial" in 2013 means generating revenue. Manufacturers will test the hell out it and that'll take time. If this company is successful 2014 is likely is the earliest MWC we'd see phones loaded with these batteries.
Japan and others toss out patent applications if an item is already being pitched for sale. (The U.S. gives you one year after launch, btw) so patents will be in place to protect the investors beforehand.
And even with the concept patented, Apple can still acquire the company to get control of the patent.
11. Stuntman posted on 01 Nov 2012, 16:50 0
Now companies can finally bring to market those cell phone features that use twice as much power and customers will be back where they started.
