Lithium ion gets a recharge

The fuel cell-a cigarette-lighter-sized power source that you can refill-is one way to solve the problem of using heavy and short-lived batteries. That's the message Intel sent in its August announcement of a tie-in with Matsushita Battery Industrial Co Ltd to develop an eight-hour, "all-day" laptop battery. The two big guns will focus on lithium-ion-battery technology. That's good news for systems designers, who won't have to fundamentally change their design methods for portable devices. "With lithium ion, there are still some tricks that can make them last longer," says Sara Bradford, research manager for power supplies and batteries at Frost & Sullivan (www.frost.com).

Lithium ion has become the battery technology of choice for laptops and cell phones, which tend to drive power-source developments in consumer devices. Lithium-ion-based batteries accounted for 71% of rechargeable batteries in 2001, which the research company expects to rise to 79% by 2010 (Picture).

The Intel-Matsushita effort will drive key Japanese battery makers to more quickly reach milestones in their technology road maps, according to Robin Sarah Tichy, product-marketing engineer at Micro Power Electronics Inc, a supplier of systems for batteries. "We see an increase in capacity for lithium ion, which won't change anything from a design point of view," Tichy says. "The voltage should stay approximately the same."

But, inevitably, handheld-equipment designers will face challenges from fuel cells, which should gain some traction by the end of the decade, according to Bradford. Laptops are expected to adopt fuel cells first, but the smaller device platform of cell phones creates a tougher design challenge. Fuel cells got a boost in 2004 when mobile-phone giant Nokia Corp (www.nokia.com) announced development strides and predicted wide use by 2006. In March, however, Nokia scaled back development work because it couldn't find a reliable supply of methanol, which the company used in its product.

Fuel cells face other hurdles, Bradford says. No one knows how to best integrate them: as clip-on or as stand-alone devices. Moreover, standards and regulatory issues remain. Fuel cells contain flammable liquids, which the Federal Aviation Administration prohibits from airplanes until 2007.

Bradford believes fuel cells won't eliminate batteries but will appear in combination with them, serving as rechargers, eliminating the need to plug a cord into a wall. Breakthroughs, however, could turn fuel cells into a disruptive technology. Every gadget manufacturer is seeking a big battery-life increase for sharp competitive advantage, and Motorola (www.motorola.com), Toshiba (www.toshiba.com), and NEC (www.nec.com) are among the players pouring resources into fuel-cell developments for cell phones and laptops.

Matsushita Battery Industrial Co Ltd, www.panasonic.co.jp/mbi/

Intel, www.intel.com.

Micro Power Electronics, www.micro-power.com.