Silicon Valley Nation
Silicon Valley Nation: 30-year battery life? Really?
Brian Fuller
12/11/2012 4:00 PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO--With the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) hopping this week, a key focus is low-power electronics, either advances in improving circuit design or the impact of other design considerations on low power.
Toshiba researchers, for example, will describe how they lowered power consumption in a mobile CPU by replacing from high-performance (HP)- SRAMs to spin transfer torque (STT)-MRAMs using perpendicular (p)-magnetic tunnel junctions.
Japan's Low-power Electronics Association & Project will describe a new low-power phase change memory.
(You get the idea, and we've previewed some of the conference here and here and will cover the proceedings daily during the week).
But it seems as scaling continues in conjunction with the battle to stop leakage current, we're running on an endless hamster wheel: small circuits and thinner gate oxides create more problems that we later confront with new processes or materials.
This notion occured to me when I read Steve Leibson's post on Low-Power Design a few weeks ago. He marvels at the battery life of some devices in the old HP Voyager calculator series. Some participants on an HP board report their calculators still run, 20-30 years later, on the same batteries.
Granted, the materials were different, linewidths more generous and performance demands not nearly as rigorous as today's handheld devices. But one would think we'd be staying one step ahead of the leakage gremlins during the technological march of progress. Wireless sensor networks today are really smart but in some instances the best-case scenario for battery life is 10 years (I know, I know: a radio device, like Zigbee etc. are not calulators, but humor me for a second).
So, with that said, here are two questions for you:
- What's the longest continuously running piece of battery-powered electronics you own?
- Do you think, given the sophistication of "modern" electronics that we, normalizing for application, can radically improve battery life in the near future? (Keep in mind, as Leibson points out, the Voyager series--which drew 0.25 milliwatts and had a standby leakage of 5 – 10 nanoamperes--was intended to last a user for one year on one set of batteries).
Related stories:
--Intel
to detail trigate advances at IEDM
--IEDM
targets next-gen memory technologies
--London
Calling: At IEDM, heat improves flash memory
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ehat
12/12/2012 8:23 AM EST
Radio Shack EC-4028 Calculator bought in ~92-93. Changed batteries in 8/12. Didnt have to but the screen was getting a little light.
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daustins
12/12/2012 11:17 AM EST
In 1981 I got a Casio hand calculator: LCD display, running on one AA battery. I never turned the power switch off. I used it daily for a decade and after 25 years found it, and it was still functioning. Under a quarter century of grime. I recall over 30 years ago when the first chip was released for flashing an LED with a very short duty cycle. It was postulated that the batteries (way before Lithium-ion and when NiCad was the Gold Standard) would last longer with a very slight current drain. It seems they were right.
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davewooff
12/12/2012 11:26 AM EST
Not sure about longest lasting battery but it always makes me smile when I see a single AA battery quartz clock on a wall struggling to overcome gravity with the big hand stuck at about 20 minutes to the hour still ticking away.
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IDontUseTheForumSoWhyAmIForcedToMakeANickname
12/12/2012 12:40 PM EST
When a quartz clock can no longer keep the arms moving its time to finally retire the battery.
When I have a remote control or other device with an (allegedly) dead battery, I save it for use in the wall clock. I can usually get another couple months of power using the battery in the clock before it finally 'gives up the ghost'
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RogerAW
12/12/2012 12:09 PM EST
Today is the 21st anniversary of our 2 Sharp EL-506H calculators which are still running on their original batteries.
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brionski
12/12/2012 12:57 PM EST
Across the hall from me, my colleague has an hp-15C calculator that he has had since college 25+ years ago that is still going on the original button batteries. He does only use it a few times a month on average, but still, that is a long time.
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Brian Fuller2
12/12/2012 1:36 PM EST
Separate application, but my father bought a Sony transistor radio in the 1960s... one of the earliest. We still have it. It still works like a charm. We listened to some historic events on that thing...
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Battar
12/13/2012 2:36 AM EST
My 1988 Fluke 73 DMM lasted a very long time on its' original battery. A Casio digital watch also lasted nearly 10 years on its' lithium coin cell. Most batteries now would self discharge before then.
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matthew43
12/13/2012 12:06 PM EST
I have a HP-15C calculator and a HP-12C. I haven't used them much in the last 7 years but when I pulled them out they still work. I didn't buy either one new so I can't tell you how old the batteries are except they are both more than 7 years. Some SOB stole my HP-15C about 12 years ago so I had to buy one on eBay. Why would an EE use any other calculator?
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K1200LT Rider
12/13/2012 12:21 PM EST
I'm afraid to leave common, alkaline batteries in anything nowadays for very long without regularly checking them. I have had so many things destroyed when they leak and/or grow the white chemical "fuzz". It's really frustrating. Do modern-day batteries do this more than they used to?
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zhgreader
12/14/2012 8:38 PM EST
solar cell can work
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