More efficient and powerful batteries funded by Canadian government’s TPC

A Mississauga ON-based firm is parlaying its experience in developing highly efficient and long-lasting rechargeable batteries for the laptop computer market to produce similar battery technology for the handheld wireless device market. Electrovaya Inc. has embarked on a five-year $33-million program to develop lithium ion polymer batteries for handsets equipped with advanced hardware and software applications. The company’s ambitious program has been bolstered by a significant investment from the Canadian government. Earlier this month, Electrovaya received an injection of $9.9 million from Technology Partnerships Canada to develop smaller, more efficient and high-power rechargeable batteries for mobile wireless communications devices. Device manufacturers are all racing to come out with the latest and greatest device that integrates the functions of several devices into one. Demand for handsets with colour screens and embedded cameras capable of taking pictures and recording video clips is expected to increase significantly over the next few years, according to Electrovaya chair, president and CEO Sankar Das Gupta. Current technology is sufficient to support most existing devices, Das Gupta explains, but power problems arise when larger colour screens with video capabilities are added to the device mix. For these types of handsets, the power requirements are enormous because of the advanced features, which significantly reduces the available talk time, he adds. Das Gupta says his firm is developing the technology that can address the power requirements these new devices are going to demand. "We have a baseline battery technology breakthrough where we can put a lot of power in a small volume, small weight package (that is) more energetic than other batteries," he tells Report on Wireless. "(These advanced handsets) need more energy and more power, so they need high-rate batteries with a very high-energy density and this program is really designed to go after that (market)." The company believes it will have no problem selling its new batteries once they are completed. "We’ve got a product out called the PowerPad series that will run your laptop 12 to 16 hours. That product is doing well and we’re building a nice distribution channel for that, so we’ve got retail, web sales, distribution and we sell through Ingram Micro," Das Gupta explains. But Electrovaya also has another card up its sleeve. It has launched its own tablet PC, dubbed the Scribbler, which the company says outperforms competing products from Fujitsu and Hewlett-Packard, for example. Das Gupta says the Scribbler can run anywhere from eight to 12 hours on a single charge. Delay in 3G network deployment not a concernDespite the delay in third-generation wireless network deployment in many parts of the world, especially Europe, Das Gupta isn’t concerned that Electrovaya’s battery technology is ahead of its time. He says device manufacturers are introducing handsets with advanced features that operate on current networks. "What is happening even without 3G, companies like Research in Motion Ltd. are coming out with next-generation phones, which are very power hungry. The drive is mainly because the processor is higher power, people want transreflective screens so they can see them in the sunlight, cameras are being embedded. So we really don’t care whether 3G comes or not, but we see the phones are going to be using a lot more power," he explains. Recent reports coming out of the United States have indicated that there is renewed interest in the use of fuel cell technology to power next-generation handsets. While Das Gupta recognizes the potential for competition, he says there are still a lot of challenges ahead for the implementation of fuel cells into mobile communications devices. "This is not a new step. Companies have been at it for 10 to 15 years. These fuel cells are run by methanol, which is a very strong neurological poison. These (devices) are bulky as well and there’s a lot of technical challenges," Das Gupta explains. "We think the market is so large and people have been talking about it for 10 years so maybe it will happen and maybe it won’t."

More efficient and powerful batteries funded by Canadian government’s TPC

News | 04/29/2003 4:00 am EDT

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