X-bit labs

Notebooks to Operate on Battery for One Day by 2010.

Category: Mobile

by Anton Shilov

[ 12/29/2004 | 09:57 AM ]

Intel Corp., the world’s leading semiconductor maker, who has been praising mobile technologies during the recent couple of years, is reportedly targeting to make notebooks operate on a battery charge “for one day”.

One Day Autonomous Work – Reality in 2010

An Intel document seen by The Inquirer web-site claims that by 2010 notebooks will be as economic and batteries will be as powerful that the laptops will be able to operate for a whole day on one charge. The document reportedly does not define the word “day” as an exact number of hours, but presumably claims that no hazardous elements are used in such notebooks or their batteries.

Nowadays mobile computers are capable of working on a battery for up 5 hours. When Intel’s next-generation mobile platform code-named Sonoma is introduced in early 2005, mobile computers are expected to gain battery time to 5.5 – 6 hours. Intel’s official plans include further reduction of chips’ power consumption and also consistent implementation of several other technologies that help to reduce overall system power consumption.

At IDF Fall 2004 Intel said notebooks in 2010 would be able to operate for 8 hours on one battery charge. To achieve this Intel said it was planning to introduce a number of changes, which should reduce the power consumption of such currently power-hungry components of every notebook as transistors and displays. Besides, the company said it would also optimize power state management approaches and resort to more advanced technologies for battery designs.

The company also said at the show that by 2010 the notebooks would be equipped with Zinc-Alkaline batteries that allow better power storage.

Future Notebooks to Offer More Communication Options, Increase Battery Life

Intel recently disclosed certain peculiarities of its platform beyond the upcoming Sonoma, the one code-named Napa. Napa Platform will inherit all the major innovations of the Sonoma, such as PCI Express, DDR2 memory, high-definition audio, etc., but will add next-generation integrated graphics engine code-named Calistoga, new power management tools that will increase battery life to over 5 hours, as well as WiMAX and 3G options.

Adding new functions and capabilities to mobile platforms taxes battery life and can limit notebook designs. Intel is working to reverse this trend by developing power state management techniques and new battery technologies essential to extending laptop battery life and keeping form factors small and light-weight.

Intel this year introduced the Intel Battery Life Optimization Program to help resolve some of the power management and platform configuration hurdles to achieving all-day battery life. The company will work with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and original design manufacturers (ODMs) to provide technical guidance on power delivery and power management architecture. Intel will also develop guidelines for optimizing power saving features using Intel hardware and software ingredients that OEMs/ODMs can design-in for greater battery life gains.

Intel said at IDF in September, 2004, it was working with its industry partners to achieve 8-hour battery life of a typical notebook by 2010. The platform approach to tackle the battery life issue includes minimizing consumption of key-system components, such as CPU, HDD, chipset, WLAN adapter and display, as well as improving batteries.

According to Intel’s estimation, around 60% of notebooks shipping nowadays support wireless LAN. The company projects 90% and 96% notebooks to sport WLAN in 2005 and 2006 respectively.

With the majority of mobile PCs supporting Wi-Fi, Intel now pays more attention to more wireless communication technologies, such as WiMAX, that is said to be to DSL/Cable broadband the same as cellular telephony was to landline telephony. The microprocessor giant expects about 5 million WiMAX enabled notebooks to ship in 2006, around 20 million in 2007 and over 40 million in 2008.