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New Power Amp Tech May Double Cell Phone Battery Life

Nov 2, 2012, 8:14 AM by Eric M. Zeman

Two MIT electrical engineering professors claim to have made a breakthrough in power amplifier design that could lead to major gains in the power efficiency of cell phones. Joel Dawson and David Perreault, working for an MIT spinout company called Eta Devices, have figured out how to manipulate the power needed by cell phones when in standby mode to improve battery life. Power amplifiers operate in low-power standby modes (receiving) and high-power output modes (transmitting). In modern devices, however, the standby mode is kept at an elevated state in order to prevent signal distortions that occur when the devices jump from low-power to high-power. Keeping the standby mode at an elevated state wastes power. Eta Designs has created a way to rev the standby mode up and down at a rate of 20 million times per second without signal distortion in order to keep the power amp in the lower-power standby mode as much as possible. Eta Designs said it is tackling this same issue at cellular base stations first, where it hopes to halve the $36 billion annual expense of powering base stations. It will then follow up with cell phones and smartphones.

MIT Technology Review »

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Comments

This forum is closed.

This forum is closed.

Tofuchong

Nov 2, 2012, 3:12 PM

Misleading Claim

So this would increase STANDBY time, not the actual phone's battery life. The article states information about standby time being greatly increased, not the actual battery life when the device is in use. My phone usually dies from extreme use from me constantly using it, not from it being on standby. If it's going to stay on standby for hours and hours, I turn it off.

sp_5015

over the last couple years, we've read about and heard about all these advances researchers are making in battery life on cell phones. it would be nice if they'd start apply it in the real world. i'm sick of my phone dying as soon as i unplug it.... :...
(continues)

...

tzsm98

So, you believe that lower consumption during standby would not leave more power for the periods when your are hammering your phone? Where is it going then? 🙄

caminel

I say thank you MIT (not Romney) 😁
You have an excellent complementary article :
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/a-breakthrough- ... »

skoobertdoo

Nov 2, 2012, 12:51 PM

breakthrough

This breakthrough sounds a lot like rooting lol. I guess its cool that we now don't have to root our phones to save battery life in standby? Haha

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