US scientists have reduced the power consumption of a key component in lithium-ion batteries used in mobile phones which could boost the overall battery life of our gadgets
Mumbai Mirror Bureau mirrorfeedback@indiatimes.com
Technophiles who have been dreaming of mobile devices that run longer on lighter,slimmer batteries may soon find their wish has been granted.
University of Illinois engineers have developed a form of ultralow-power digital memory that is faster and uses 100 times less energy than anything else available.The technology could give future portable devices much longer battery life between charges.
Led by professor Eric Pop,the team will publish its results in an upcoming issue of Science.I think anyone who is dealing with a lot of chargers and plugging things in every night can relate to wanting a cellphone or laptop whose batteries can last for weeks or months, said Pop.
MEMORY PROBLEMS
The flash memory used in mobile devices today stores bits as charge,which requires high voltages to operate and is rather slow.
Pops group lowered the power per bit to 100 times less than existing flash memory by focusing on one simple,yet key factor: size.
Rather than the metal wires standard in industry,the group used carbon nanotubes,tiny tubes only a few nanometres in diameter 10,000 times smaller than a human hair.The energy consumption is essentially scaled with the volume of the memory bit, said student Feng Xiong.By using nanoscale contacts,we are able to achieve much smaller power consumption.
Carbon nanotubes are the smallest known electronic conductors, Pop said.They are better than any metal at delivering a little jolt of electricity to zap the flash memory bit.
WHY CARBON NANOTUBES
Nanotubes also boast an extraordinary stability,as they are not susceptible to the degradation that can plague metal wires.In addition,they are immune to accidental erasure from a passing scanner or magnet.
The new flash memory chip could be used in existing devices allowing for a significant increase in battery life.Right now,a smart phone uses about a watt of energy and a laptop runs on more than 25 watts.Some of that energy goes to the display,but an increasing percentage is dedicated to memory.
Anytime youre running an app,or storing MP3s,or streaming videos,its draining the battery, said student Albert Liao.
The memory and the processor are working hard retrieving data.As people use their phones to place calls less and use them for computing more,improving the data storage and retrieval operations is important.
Pop believes that,along with improvements in display technology,the nanotube PCM memory could increase an iPhones energy efficiency so it could run for a longer time on a smaller battery,or even to the point where it could run simply by harvesting its own thermal,mechanical or solar energy no battery required.And device junkies will not be the only beneficiaries.
Were not just talking about lightening our pockets or purses, Pop said.This is also important for anything that has to operate on a battery,such as satellites,telecommunications equipment,or any number of scientific and military applications.
The team has made and tested a few hundred chips so far,and they want to scale up production to create arrays of memory bits that operate together.They also hope to achieve greater data density through clever programming.
Even though weve taken one technology and shown that it can be improved by a factor of 100,we have not yet reached what is physically possible.We have not even tested the limits yet.I think we could lower power by at least another factor of 10, Pop said.
Mumbai Mirror Bureau mirrorfeedback@indiatimes.com
Technophiles who have been dreaming of mobile devices that run longer on lighter,slimmer batteries may soon find their wish has been granted.
University of Illinois engineers have developed a form of ultralow-power digital memory that is faster and uses 100 times less energy than anything else available.The technology could give future portable devices much longer battery life between charges.
Led by professor Eric Pop,the team will publish its results in an upcoming issue of Science.I think anyone who is dealing with a lot of chargers and plugging things in every night can relate to wanting a cellphone or laptop whose batteries can last for weeks or months, said Pop.
MEMORY PROBLEMS
The flash memory used in mobile devices today stores bits as charge,which requires high voltages to operate and is rather slow.
Pops group lowered the power per bit to 100 times less than existing flash memory by focusing on one simple,yet key factor: size.
Rather than the metal wires standard in industry,the group used carbon nanotubes,tiny tubes only a few nanometres in diameter 10,000 times smaller than a human hair.The energy consumption is essentially scaled with the volume of the memory bit, said student Feng Xiong.By using nanoscale contacts,we are able to achieve much smaller power consumption.
Carbon nanotubes are the smallest known electronic conductors, Pop said.They are better than any metal at delivering a little jolt of electricity to zap the flash memory bit.
WHY CARBON NANOTUBES
Nanotubes also boast an extraordinary stability,as they are not susceptible to the degradation that can plague metal wires.In addition,they are immune to accidental erasure from a passing scanner or magnet.
The new flash memory chip could be used in existing devices allowing for a significant increase in battery life.Right now,a smart phone uses about a watt of energy and a laptop runs on more than 25 watts.Some of that energy goes to the display,but an increasing percentage is dedicated to memory.
Anytime youre running an app,or storing MP3s,or streaming videos,its draining the battery, said student Albert Liao.
The memory and the processor are working hard retrieving data.As people use their phones to place calls less and use them for computing more,improving the data storage and retrieval operations is important.
Pop believes that,along with improvements in display technology,the nanotube PCM memory could increase an iPhones energy efficiency so it could run for a longer time on a smaller battery,or even to the point where it could run simply by harvesting its own thermal,mechanical or solar energy no battery required.And device junkies will not be the only beneficiaries.
Were not just talking about lightening our pockets or purses, Pop said.This is also important for anything that has to operate on a battery,such as satellites,telecommunications equipment,or any number of scientific and military applications.
The team has made and tested a few hundred chips so far,and they want to scale up production to create arrays of memory bits that operate together.They also hope to achieve greater data density through clever programming.
Even though weve taken one technology and shown that it can be improved by a factor of 100,we have not yet reached what is physically possible.We have not even tested the limits yet.I think we could lower power by at least another factor of 10, Pop said.
Led by professor Eric Pop (left) a team of researchers (pictured) have developed a form of ultra-low-power digital memory for mobile gadget batteries that is faster and uses 100 times less energy than similar available memory
