CONSUMERS have long accepted a world of short smart phone battery life, and multiple incompatible battery formats and interfaces. This could soon change.
MIPI Alliance has announced a battery interface for mobile devices which improves safety, battery performance and reduces the battery’s environmental impact.
According to industry analysts, the mobile device battery industry has expanded to at least 1.5 billion batteries produced per year. However, these batteries use many different, non-standard proprietary battery interfaces.
As advanced wireless networks including LTE and HSPA+ gain deployment, and smart phone functions require ever increasing processing power, the mobile device battery will become the weakest link in the mobile device.
The MIPI Alliance says its new BIF interface specification will address this challenge.
Longer life, safer, greener batteries
The MIPI Battery Interface specification addresses several key issues, including battery life, environmental concerns, high capacity chemistries and consumer safety.
Popular smart phones are known to have shorter battery life as they churn through large amounts of data and always-on applications. MIPI's specification includes unified access to parameters, state monitoring and optimised charging events which improve functionality within the battery, lengthening its life.
These capabilities also enable battery pack manufacturers to quickly implement and adopt environmentally-friendly and efficient chemistries for a "greener" battery.
The smart battery technology also supports advanced authentication and temperature measurement functions, boosting consumer safety.
Standardisation
While consumers have long been aware of this, numerous, proprietary battery interfaces can be harmful not just to consumer choice, but also mobile device makers. Manufacturers usually specify a unique interface for their phone models.
With this comes the responsibility to support and maintain these solutions for each ecosystem member down the line. Mobile chipset suppliers must also support these different interfaces, and each unique interface requires design support and more chipset silicon. Battery chip and batter pack makers also face the same scenario.
Ultimately, these extra costs are absorbed by the customers. But at the same time, the burden of supporting all the different interfaces and shapes means there is less impetus to implement new environmentally-friendly or high capacity chemistries.
The MIPI Battery Interface specification is designed to replace all existing proprietary mobile device battery interface solutions and supports both smart and low-cost batteries.
Standardising on a single interface solution, mobile chipset suppliers can reduce design time and silicon area, passing on these savings to their customers. Battery slave IC and battery pack IC providers can realize the same benefits, eliminating the need for customised products.
Battery pack manufactures can quickly implement the latest chemistry advancements without jeopardizing backwards compatibility or requiring single-customer products. Mobile device manufacturers can streamline their product designs while maintaining existing vendor relationships.
Contributors to the specification include: Analog Devices, Infineon Technologies, Intel Corporation, Lattice Semiconductor Corporation, Nokia Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, Qualcomm Incorporated, Research In Motion, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, STMicroelectronics, ST-Ericsson, Texas Instruments Incorporated and Toshiba Corporation.
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