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Power IBM Hardware

IBM and Samsung Say Their New Chip Design Could Lead To Week-Long Battery Life On Phones (theverge.com) 85

Posted by BeauHD from the ambitious-claims dept.
IBM and Samsung have announced their latest advance in semiconductor design: a new way to stack transistors vertically on a chip (instead of lying flat on the surface of the semiconductor). The Verge reports: The new Vertical Transport Field Effect Transistors (VTFET) design is meant to succeed the current FinFET technology that's used for some of today's most advanced chips and could allow for chips that are even more densely packed with transistors than today. In essence, the new design would stack transistors vertically, allowing for current to flow up and down the stack of transistors instead of the side-to-side horizontal layout that's currently used on most chips. Vertical designs for semiconductors have been a trend for a while (FinFET already offers some of those benefits); Intel's future roadmap also looks to move in that direction, too, although its initial work focused on stacking chip components rather than individual transistors. It makes sense, after all: when you've run out of ways to add more chips in one plane, the only real direction (other than physically shrinking transistor technology) is to go up.

While we're still a ways away from VTFET designs being used in actual consumer chips, the two companies are making some big claims, noting that VTFET chips could offer a "two times improvement in performance or an 85 percent reduction in energy use" compared to FinFET designs. And by packing more transistors into chips, IBM and Samsung claim that VTFET technology could help keep Moore's law's goal of steadily increasing transistor count moving forward. IBM and Samsung are also citing some ambitious possible use cases for the new technology, raising the idea of "cell phone batteries that could go over a week without being charged, instead of days," less energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining or data encryption, and even more powerful IoT devices or even spacecraft.
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IBM and Samsung Say Their New Chip Design Could Lead To Week-Long Battery Life On Phones More

IBM and Samsung Say Their New Chip Design Could Lead To Week-Long Battery Life On Phones

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  • Nokia Brick (Score:3, Interesting)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Friday December 17, 2021 @03:03AM (#62089493) Homepage

    What did they do? Revert to the old school Nokia Brick!? We HAD That tech ages ago, ya'll threw it away!

    • Re:Nokia Brick (Score:4, Informative)

      by NateFromMich ( 6359610 ) on Friday December 17, 2021 @03:07AM (#62089503)

      What did they do? Revert to the old school Nokia Brick!? We HAD That tech ages ago, ya'll threw it away!

      You're free to buy a dumb phone still, if that's what you want. Nobody threw anything away.

      • A nokie 6303. Ok, technically its a featurephone, not a dumbphone and its on its 2nd battery (but then it is 12 years old) and battery life is approx 3 weeks in normal use as I tend to use it more often for phone tasks than the smartphone as its smaller and less fuss just to dial a number (ie pick up, dial number, not pick up, unlock, find phone app, dial)

      • In my country they are gradually shutting down the old networks, so the good ole 3310:s will stop being usable for calling here in a few years. I know at least two people who use them.

        • There are flip phones available for 4G LTE.

          Nobody is forced to use a smartphone.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Have you looked closely at them? They run Android, just with many features disabled. The issue is that it's pretty much impossible to get drivers for anything that isn't Android, or at least Linux. As such they are almost always cut down smartphones, not real dumbphones.

      • Kid they stack these transistors in 3D then how do I access the inner workings of my CPU? It's just like gluing the case shut. Ifixit will give this a zero for lack of repair ability. This is more lock-in from the Man. Boycott 3D transistor tech!

      • Hard to do. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Friday December 17, 2021 @11:24AM (#62090465)

        As someone who has stuck using "low-end" phones for decades, it's become increasingly difficult to do this. At this point, you can no longer buy dumb phone but you can buy a feature phone... which always includes an online store. Very few vendors actually make 4G feature phones and the ones that do have megabright color LCDs instead of conserving power.

        That said, there is a niche (and therefore expensive) minimalist phone which is 4G and uses low power display called "Mudita Pure" [mudita.com] which is actually built using an isolated 4G communication module (good for security). This is the best long-term option because the module can be replaced with 5G or whatever down the line. The OS and interface are also open source [github.com] (based on FreeRTOS) and doesn't do anything fishy in the background.

        • Thumbs up. I find the idea of such a device horrifying, but I love that it exists.
          My Pebble Watch had an E-Ink display. Loved it. Lasted for the better part of a week (My Apple Watch doesn't even last a day, lol)

          Bonus points to them if they allow re-building the FreeRTOS core and loading it onto the phone.
          • Addendum: There aren't any indications as of yet that they get the bonus points.
            They have a Developer Preview program, where you can compile the OS and run it in a simulator, but all mentions of firmware on the phone mention that it will be locked down, and nothing mentions whether or not the signing process can be user-controlled.

            This means, humorously enough, that you're more able to "secure" and verify "non-fishiness" of your average Android phone.
            I do hope that position evolves as they come close to

          • * You can load your own firmware, they have instructions in the repo.
            * The developer preview ended and now it's just open to everyone. I linked to the primary repo.
            * They started shipping out phones at the start of the month.

            • * You can load your own firmware, they have instructions in the repo.

              They do. Kind of.
              They have instructions for loading code onto the phone via GDB. This doesn't imply that you can flash and boot said code. Since they state that the boot process is cryptographically protected, without further instructions, I have to assume that my interpretation is correct.

                • Yes. I know the flash tool exists.
                  But there's no documentation indicating that it can be used. Mudita doesn't say it can be done, and there's no documentation for the bootloader, which the IMXRT1050-EVKB requires be signed. Whether or not it will only boot signed FreeRTOS images is the question, and as far as I can tell, it's not a question that is answered.

                  I've emailed them asking that. No answer yet. Will update when I get response.

                  • The bootloader itself is closed source. However, it will boot custom firmware images, no signing needed. I would argue that perfect is the enemy of good but to each their own. However, if it's not enough for you and you are of sufficient skill then it wouldn't take much effort to build a replacement PCB with an MCU of your choice.

                    Frankly, your focus should be on the cellular module because while you can replace the firmware with a Linux build, some programs are closed source. When you RE them (from a fi

                    • I have no problem with the closed source signed bootloader- just wanted to make sure it will boot unsigned images (ones I built)
                      That makes it a compelling buy, if for no other reason than to support not-shitty hardware business practices. I'm familiar with the CPU, and there's no real way to leave anything resident that can't be detected after boot.

                      Will do on the forum. I'm not so interested in the cellular module. It's an external unit, so the worst that it could subversively do is "listen in on my call

                  • If you have questions for them then you should really use the forum instead of emailing them directly. https://forum.mudita.com/c/Mud... [mudita.com]

        • To save people from wasting their attention and time: It's $369 for a dumb phone.

        • The off-the-shelf E Ink display that Mudita uses is the same as the E Ink displays in other phones. And even with all their battery life optimizations, they still get less battery life than the nearly identical Light Phone II. It's a neat project and I wish them luck. Their attention to open source has been admirable but like with all these kinds of systems, there's hardly any apps available. There are OSes like KaiOS (which is derived from Firefox OS) that offer large app ecosystems, long battery life, an

    • Re: Nokia Brick (Score:3, Informative)

      by shibbie ( 619359 )
      Came to say just that. My Nokia 105 manages a month on standby. They could make all Android phones do this if they switched off smart phone features in standby, but they won't do this, or design for this, as then Google or other manufacturer wouldn't make money from your position info, push notification adverts, call to actions (to buy) etc.
      • Calculators are usually solar powered and that is practical because they have the same kind of low power screen as your phone. There are no inlays waiting for a finger's resistance, no logic running to detect your cheek or radar looking for a face.

    • I've only ever had one mobile phone and the battery lasted 2 and a half weeks when I got it. The battery isn't very good now so it only lasts a week.
      It's a Sony Ericsson k310i

  • Oh Sure (Score:3)

    by NateFromMich ( 6359610 ) on Friday December 17, 2021 @03:06AM (#62089499)
    They COULD make a phone that lasted a week on a charge, but instead they'll downsize the battery to only go for about a day or two, maximum.
    • And this might not be a bad thing? A fair chunk of the weight of a cellphone currently is the battery. I use an Oculus Quest 2 (which is just an Android phone in an odd form-factor and with more cameras than usual) to work in VR and a very large chunk of the weight of the thing is the battery. If the new chip tech can extend battery use from 24 hours to a week, you could cut the battery weight by two thirds and still double the battery life - from the current four hours to a full working day. It would b
      • But I'm skeptical. Aren't the two biggest energy users on smartphones currently the screen backlight and the radios? It's hard to see transistor stacking make a major difference to either of them. Certainly not an extend-the-battery-life-to-a-week difference.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

          I think they meant standby.

          • I think they meant standby.

            Hell, that's not a huge breakthrough, my main phone easily does 2 days of moderate usage on a charge. I've got a small box of phones that run a week or more in standby, including an iPhone 6 (albeit without a SIM in it).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          Screen issue is partially solvable with OLED and using black background (which is OLED OFF state for relevant screen pixels) for most things.

          Radios are nearly totally solvable by nuking telemetry/spyware and just requiring short bursts of internet connectivity when in standby to check for new notifications every few minutes. I.e. what current dumbphones already do.

          High power states of "I'm using it to watch cat videos" stuff however needs to have CPU/GPU mitigations as well, ranging from already implemented

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        It's already not that much weight, it's just awkward because all the weight is in the front. It is more comfortable just by adding dead weight in the back. It can be even heavier and yet more comfortable than it is now. If you could cut 2/3rds of the battery, that's probably about 50 grams or so and you probably would still find it awkward if not balanced.

        Similarly for phones, you could reduce it down to just the glass sheet that is the front of the phone and fall damage would still be about as bad, and a

        • I've got the elite strap with the battery at the back that balances it fairly well. I still think halving the weight would be a pretty Good Thing. And, as you say, when battery weights are cut by a third or more, lots of tiny applications become possible. Heck, smart watches might even have a battery life that would make them useable.

          • I've got the elite strap with the battery at the back that balances it fairly well. I still think halving the weight would be a pretty Good Thing. And, as you say, when battery weights are cut by a third or more, lots of tiny applications become possible. Heck, smart watches might even have a battery life that would make them useable.

            We have those too, I've got one of the cheap Chinese nRF smartwatches flashed with open source firmware that runs about a week on a charge. Sure, it's not got a camera and Siri, but it shows notifications/calls, controls music playback, kind of tracks heart rate, causes my phone to make a loud noise so I can find where I misplaced it, and as a bonus also shows the time.

            The Oculus use case would be nice, but probably much of the power drain there is the display as well, and its pretty much gonna be on the w

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vivian ( 156520 )

        How is your eyesight holding up? I would seriously like to know if there are problems with using these things long term. (I have an Oculus quest 1 but haven't used it much - but have been thinking of starting some game development projects for it.

        I found that using a velcro strip to add a 10Ah battery bank (annoyingly labelled 10000 mAh) to the back of the thing did wonders for both improving the battery life and also improving the comfort of the thing because the weight is better balanced.

        • I've been using it for a few months now. I find it much more comfortable on my eyes than the 32" 4k and 24" 1080 screens I used to use. It has other benefits, too - working standing up us just a matter of finding something the right height to put your keyboard on. My level of fitness has increased quite noticeably from this change.

    • Re:Oh Sure (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sd4f ( 1891894 ) on Friday December 17, 2021 @05:45AM (#62089701)

      You can clearly see that it's an industry norm, considering the number of charge cycles that Li-ion batteries can manage, it kind of makes most phones with glued in screens and glued in batteries last about 2-3 years until the battery life starts to become an issue. By then, it's not worth spending the money, and risking component damage to open it up to replace the battery.

      The other thing, the screen is the component which uses the most power, or so I'm led to believe, so I'm struggling to see how the phones will last a week, assuming all else is equal. Like, I'll take more efficiency wherever I can get it, but I think this just the typical 'blowing smoke in ones proverbial...' that usually occurs with these great new chips that are just around the corner, real soon now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      Then they'll run an always-on IA on the camera and the mic to listen in on everything you say ("Hey Siri!") or watch for your face to turn on at once (saving you one second, and giving easy access to your abusing ex); thus taking up 10x the CPU power, and back to one charge a day.

      • Then they'll run an always-on IA on the camera and the mic to listen in on everything you say ("Hey Siri!")

        In case there is anybody who doesn't know it yet: iPhones (and iPads and HomePods) have a built-in chip that detects the phrase "Hey Siri" and nothing else. That's how they could make Siri "always on" around the iPhone 6 or so, without eating up your battery.

        It also records you saying that exact phrase, so it can identify the voice that said "Hey Siri" and take commands only from that one voice. Very useful if you have multiple people in a room, so a HomePod will take commands from the one person saying

    • Nah (Score:2)

      by oGMo ( 379 )
      They'll cram as much battery in there as possible, as well as the fastest CPU, and all the crapware and bloaty new updates they can. It'll feel about the same as it always did, act basically like it always did, but with exciting new monetization schemes for freemium apps.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      You can buy a phone with a 10000mah battery or you can buy the slim one it's your choice, my phone has such a battery, at the end of the working day it still has about 80% charge. The battery lasts about 6 to 8 weeks on one charge when just the cell is on but not wifi or mobile data etc.

  • Smartphones can last for weeks too, already! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MindPrison ( 864299 ) on Friday December 17, 2021 @03:35AM (#62089557) Journal

    The biggest problem isn't chip design anymore, todays smartphones are VERY energy efficient.

    The biggest hurdle is the extreme amount of uninstallable bloatware and telemetry software that pumps out data constantly about our whereabouts , push notifications (yes even forced push notifications), and ADS - endless amounts of ads.

    Those few smartphones that can be legally rooted (without the company wanting to brick your phone for not accepting their telemetry requirements) last for over a week already if you don't constantly sit on facebook/metaverse, tik tok, imgur, snapchat, whatsapp etc.

    • Gosh, too quick, I meant to type "bloatware you can't uninstall".

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Bloatware isn't the probem. You can easily prove this to yourself by getting a phone supported by Lineage and installing a minimal version with no bloatware. You won't suddenly get massively more battery life. Certainly not over a week.

      It's the efficiency of things like the radio transceiver (which has to stay connected to the cellular network all the time, and these days many people use Bluetooth all the time too) and screen.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        "It's the efficiency of things like the radio transceiver (which has to stay connected to the cellular network all the time"

        No shit. You mean like all those dumbphones that do the exact same thing yet can measure battery life in weeks in normal use and months on standby?

      • Bloatware isn't the probem. You can easily prove this to yourself by getting a phone supported by Lineage and installing a minimal version with no bloatware. You won't suddenly get massively more battery life. Certainly not over a week.

        YMMV. Personally get over a week on LineageOS. Amazing how much longer battery lasts without any carrier and Google play malware installed.

        It's the efficiency of things like the radio transceiver (which has to stay connected to the cellular network all the time, and these days many people use Bluetooth all the time too) and screen.

        Old feature phones a third of the size and less than a third of the battery of my current phone were able to easily last a week while constantly connected to the network.

  • These phones are probably being used by the mice who have been given all the latest scientific advancements, with the latest miracle battery tech.

    I think I'm joking, but it's 2021.

  • Vertical designs for semiconductors have been a trend for a while (FinFET already offers some of those benefits)

    No shit; VMOS has been a thing since 1969. That's almost as long as FETs in general have been a thing.

  • ...can it still explode at the end of the week-long period ?

  • Classic example (Score:3)

    by sd4f ( 1891894 ) on Friday December 17, 2021 @06:07AM (#62089733)
    The linked article is a classic example of a tech article written by someone who has practically no knowledge of how to critically address what is was presented to them. Unfortunately, it's just IBM/Samsung's talking points or press release reworked and that's about it. I really shouldn't expect more from the verge, but there you go. It's a clear demonstration that a lot of these communications graduates, who decades ago would be writing junk for regular rags on boring topics, now put on hipster glasses, have some designer stubble, and all of a sudden they're "in tech".
    • Is this significantly different from the 1970s/80s electronic trade press with gem headlines such as "Cat fight looms in logic analyzers"?

  • Sounds good (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Friday December 17, 2021 @06:43AM (#62089805) Journal

    But what do you do about heat dissipation? The better the contact area of a chip, the better the cooling, the more power it can bring to bear... at least that's basically how overclocking on the desktop goes.

    It's hard to imagine that stacking transistors wouldn't lead to issues cooling the lower layers.

    • Lower power consumption = less waste heat to dissipate?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They already do stack transistors, it's just that currently the layers are electrically isolated except for a few interconnections. This allows them to build complete 3D circuits without restriction.

    • They are talking about chips in mobile phone. Those chips are cooled passively anyway. And if they are truly more energy efficient, they should produce less heat.

  • My phone can already go a week without needing charged, and it still has days after that.

    Never mind, I forgot. These are "smart" phones. The ones gobbling up power just sitting around doing nothing as it sends your data back to companies.

  • Heat tends to head upwards. How much energy will be needed to cool components near the top of the stacks?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      a) This is solid-state, so heat tends in all directions. You are thinking of convection in gases and liquids.
      b) This material is really thin, so heat transfer within the material is usually secondary.

    • Heat tends to head upwards. How much energy will be needed to cool components near the top of the stacks?

      If a phone works for a week with a current battery, then it must produce a lot less heat, so that's no problem.

  • This is fantastic news!

    While we're still a ways away from VTFET designs being used in actual consumer chips

    Oh. Like the cancer cures, then.

  • What else is new. Lets see what actually comes out of production. Probably an improvement, but also probably nowhere near as good as they claim.

  • Even if all the tall claims are true, and even if they actually ship a chip with such efficient energy use, the phones would not last a week.

    Its like building a highway to relieve congestion. Additional capacity would instantly used by more users.

    The phone makers will shrink the battery to save costs, or add additional power hungry apps, or keep the existing power hungry apps running for longer duration and show you a battery warning at the end of the day.

    The phone maker's ploy to make you run the repl

    • Hello,

      Subject says it all. And yes, I did finally replace that phone because of the battery going wonky.

      I probably could have gotten even more out of it. Turns out I was charging the Pixel incorrectly to get maximum life out of the battery. If you want to maximize the life of your battery:

      1) Avoid putting it in too hot or too cold conditions.
      2) you keep it charged between 40 and 80% all the time.
      (100% and 0% are both bad for batteries.)
      3) Char

  • I have a cheaper mid tier Motorola smart phone (More expensive smart phones have zero features I'm interested in) whose model came with an above average battery size. It's still newish but the battery runs at least a work week no problem. I assume this is because while this phone has what is essentially a flag ship phone's battery in it it doesn't use nearly as much juice with it's much lower tier hardware.

    That's with around 30-45 minutes of active usage a day so obviously those folks who are glued to their

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      Ugh never mind. I guess the average American is on their smart phone for almost 4 hours a day. I forget a lot of people don't own PCs anymore

  • ...when they replace "could" (used five times) with "will."

  • You can't make cryptocurrency mining less energy intensive. That's by design. Energy is the main cost. If you make it take less energy, that encourages more people to start mining, the network adapts, and the energy requirement goes up again. It's literally designed to be anti-efficient, so any attempt at saving energy is automatically neutralized.

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