Prepared to send sizeable chunks of data at any given time, the amplifiers stay at maximum voltage, eating away power — more than any other smartphone component, and about 75 percent of electricity consumption in base stations — and wasting more than half of that power as heat. This means smartphone batteries lose longevity, and base stations waste energy and lose money.
But Eta Devices has developed a chip (for smartphones) and a shoebox-size module (for base stations) — based on nearly a decade of MIT research — to essentially “switch gears” to adjust voltage supply to power amplifiers as needed, cutting the waste.
When trialed in a base station last year, Eta Devices’ module became the first transmitter for 4G LTE networks to achieve an average efficiency greater than 70 percent, Dawson says. “The highest number we’ve heard before that was 45 percent — and that’s probably being generous,” he says.
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Besides battery life, Dawson adds, there are many ways the telecommunications industry can take advantage of improved efficiency. Eta Devices’ approach could lead to smaller handset batteries, for example, and even smaller handsets, since there would be less dissipating heat. The technology could also drive down operating costs for base stations in the developing world, where these stations rely on expensive diesel fuel for power.
And ultimately, it could impact the environment: if all midsized carrier networks were to replace current radio amplifiers with Eta Devices’ technology, he says, the reduction in greenhouse gases would be equivalent to taking about 5 million cars off the road. “There are so many ways to leverage high efficiency if you have it,” Dawson says.
Read original article at Beating Battery Drain
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