Are you sick and tired of charging your smartphone again and again? Is the sight of a socket irksome to you now? If so, then an MIT spinoff may have just the solution for you! An MIT spinoff claims to have developed a technology that optimally varies the voltage supplied to the processor depending on the load. They claim that their technology does this about 20 million times per second and can make your smartphone’s battery last up to twice of what it did initially, saving you the hassle of charging your device multiple times a day.
This energy saving is focused on the power amplifier; the power amplifier is that part of your smartphone that converts electricity into radio signals, and for sending out digital data it uses two specific modes called standby mode and output mode. Observations have shown however that this kind of a chip wastes about 65% of the power supplied to it, thus draining the battery much faster. Further, radio signals can be distorted if they are suddenly transmitted at high power and then low power or vice-versa, so the current technology used usually includes a high level standby mode. It seems in that case the only solution to solve the excessive power consumption is by somehow reducing the power wastage in standby mode.
Essentially this is what the MIT spinoff ETA Devices claims. They claim to have been able to develop a better amplifier design, and their technology is expected to reduce smartphone and base station energy consumption significantly, rather almost to half of what was consumed earlier. MIT electrical engineers Joel Dawson and David Perreault and ETA Devices have employed asymmetric multilevel out-phasing technology that allows the process to be conducted at the rate of 20 million times per second.
ETA Devices are still taking baby steps in the development of this technology. However, it is expected that this technology will be available to LTE stations by 2013, though the iPhone 5 is already currently using about five of these chips. The company is expected to perform a formal launch ceremony at the Mobile World Congress at Barcelona this year. This technology is expected to make first appearances at power stations that use diesel to fuel generators and is expected to help improve efficiency considerably, considering reducing energy wastage is the prime concern amongst leading companies around the world now.
