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Power Apple

Apple's Battery Supplier TDK Says It Made a Big Breakthrough (qz.com) 59

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
Rocio Fabbro reports via Quartz: TDK, the largest maker of smartphone batteries in the world, said Monday that it has successfully developed a material that could be used in a new battery with "significantly higher energy density" than its existing cells. Energy density refers to how much energy a battery can store relative to its size or weight. The material will be used in TDK's CeraCharge solid-state battery, which it says has an energy density of 1,000 watt-hours per liter -- approximately 100 times more than its conventional solid-state battery. These batteries use an oxide-based solid electrolyte, in contrast with the liquid electrolyte used in lithium-ion batteries that are widely found in electronic devices, making them "extremely safe." Solid-state batteries are smaller, charge faster, last longer, and have a lower risk of damage from temperature changes. "Smaller size and higher capacitance contribute to smaller device size and longer operating time," the Tokyo-based company said.

The battery is designed to replace coin cell primary batteries, such as those found in wearable devices like wireless headphones, smartwatches, and hearing aids. The new batteries would be rechargeable, in compliance with new European Union battery regulations that are aimed at reducing the environmental impact of batteries. TDK said it's working toward mass production of solid-state batteries, and beefing up the batteries' capacity using multi-layer lamination technology and expanding their operating temperature range.
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Apple's Battery Supplier TDK Says It Made a Big Breakthrough More

Apple's Battery Supplier TDK Says It Made a Big Breakthrough

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  • original PR (Score:5, Informative)

    by pitch2cv ( 1473939 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2024 @05:11AM (#64557467)

    Here the press release from TDK: https://www.tdk.com/en/news_ce... [tdk.com]
    (Without the ads and autoplay video)

    • Re:original PR (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2024 @06:20AM (#64557531) Homepage

      Press release hype

      * What cell components are you measuring for that density? Just the active materials?
      * Under what conditions do you actually get that density?
      * What's your Wh/kg?
      * What's the cycle life?
      * .. under what conditions?
      * What's your power density curve (charge/discharge, under different temperatures)?
      * .. and what impact does charging or discharging at those powers have on your other stats, particularly cycle life?
      * What's your efficiency in different conditions, given that efficiency isn't just about loss but internal heat production as well?
      * If you don't have cycle life numbers, how much of your inefficiency is due to irreversible reactions? E.g. do you have >= 99,99% reversability (90% retention after 1k cycles)?
      * Have you produced any at a scale larger than lab-scale synthesis?
      * If not, why do you think that it will scale economically, given that scaling challenges keep most lab tech from commercialization?
      * Does it contain unobtanium, e.g. anything that would inherently price it out of competitiveness?
      * Does it contain inherently impose high production capital costs, such as CVD, long setting times, high vacuum oven costs, etc?
      * Does it require extreme production system precision on parts that will experience differential stress or differential wear?
      * What is the timescale to commercialization?
      * .. and how do your numbers compare to projections for li-ion stats in that timeframe?

      And about a million other questions. Just pointing out "we have a high number in some regard" is meaningless; everyone does this with all their lab breakthroughs.

  • Good, but make a relevant comparision maybe? (Score:5, Informative)

    by chebeba ( 241394 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2024 @05:12AM (#64557469)

    1000 Wh/l is certainly a big step forward if it reaches production.
    But the 100x comparision against TDKs old and quite obsolete solid state product is misleading.
    Current best in class Lithium-Ion batteries achieve on the order of 500 Wh/l.
    So this is ~2x and solid state. Great. But don't call it 100x, marketing folks :-) !

  • Thinner iPhones, Macs, watches, cool!

  • This may be behind the rumors of a "thinner" new Apple Watch.

    • This may be behind the rumors of a "thinner" new Apple Watch.

      No.

      That's most likely due to a change in Display Technology, like with the new M4 iPad Pro.

  • wH/liter? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    what sort of liberal units are they?

    Surely it's joules per pint. Cheers.

    • Re: wH/liter? (Score:5, Funny)

      by EmagGeek ( 574360 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2024 @08:19AM (#64557703) Journal

      Joules are an SI unit. The units you are looking for are BTU/pint.

      • What is that in freedom units of HP/gal?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by nickovs ( 115935 )

          What is that in freedom units of HP/gal?

          For energy density (as opposed to power density) I think that you need HP-days/gallon to get the right dimensions.

          Since energy density has the same dimensionality as pressure, the proper tabloid headline unit is weight-of-elephants per (American) football field. For reference, 1000Wh/l is nearly half a billion elephants per football field.

  • The original TDK press release says this is 100x better than current coin cell batteries, so this is great for your smart watch or smart home items like AirTags.

    However, it is only 2x the best Tesla battery density, and we have no idea on price yet. It might be a breakthrough for cars, it might be too costly.

  • Apple (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nicubunu ( 242346 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2024 @06:36AM (#64557545) Homepage

    What Apple has to to with this story? Is about TDK, a huge Japanese corporation that produces batteries used by a lot of companies, including many Apple rivals.

    • > What Apple has to to with this story

      Absolutely nothing whatsoever.

      But clicks gunna bait.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I suppose the journalist thinks that people won't be familiar with TDK. They used to have more consumer brands, back when they were selling various kinds of tape and optical media. Now they are mostly making various semiconductor devices and industrial batteries.

      • I suppose the journalist thinks that people won't be familiar with TDK. They used to have more consumer brands, back when they were selling various kinds of tape and optical media. Now they are mostly making various semiconductor devices and industrial batteries.

        The first thing I remember with a TDK Logo was a sealed Inductor inside my Vox CryBaby Wah-Wah Pedal around 1970.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I think they also had the confusingly named That's brand of media. Like Mitsubishi had the Verbatim brand for some reason. But then in 2007 all the media stuff was sold to Imation and became shit tier.

          I think they also own Epcot, who make electronic components.

          • I think they also had the confusingly named That's brand of media. Like Mitsubishi had the Verbatim brand for some reason. But then in 2007 all the media stuff was sold to Imation and became shit tier.

            I think they also own Epcot, who make electronic components.

            TDK marketed Audio, Video and Data Tapes for years. Typical Japanese Conglomerate: Everything from Spoons to Steamshovels.

    • Well, if TDK's technology becomes practical for more than coin cells, Apple will use it to make even slimmer phones, tablets, and laptops. Which of course sucks, because I'd gladly take any of those being 3x thicker than today's models just for the sake of larger capacity batteries.

    • Nothing directly for now. However if TDK can make it work, Apple will likely help them by partially funding it. They have done that in the past with other suppliers. Often Apple will provide upfront money in exchange for limited exclusivity. For example, they have worked out deals with TSMC in the past where Apple loaned hundreds of millions of dollars for TSMC to build leading edge nodes in exchange for the right to be first customer on that node. Even large corporations need capital funding at times.

    • What Apple has to to with this story?

      Slashdot is ad-supported. People bitching about Apple is lucrative.

  • Sounds like another corporation has "discovered" lithium-air batteries. Stocks went a bit low due to high interest rate?

    Fuck's sake, this is a technology we know of since what, 1980s? The old joke is that fusion at our planet's surface gravity is perpetually 50 years away, and lithium-air batteries are perpetually 20 years away. Because there are several critical problems we have no idea how to solve with both.

    We don't use lithium ion and lithium polymer batteries for shits and giggles. We use them because

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Didn't make it to the third sentence of the summary hey?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        I read the entire thing. Then I read the actual announcement. Then I read the accompanying documents.

        They literally tell us nothing concrete. They do imply that they figured out a way to make lithium air work. But they don't actually say it. Tomoshiro Kanno, the man behind the announcement is really good at PR, in that none of the materials published say anything meaningful, but imply a lot.

  • A question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RUs1729 ( 10049396 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2024 @07:56AM (#64557643)
    Over the years, how many of those 'breakthroughs' announced in this forum actually ended up making a difference down the line?

  • Apple already asked them to make it thinner.

  • and (Score:2)

    by xanthos ( 73578 )
    you can re-charge it from your fusion device! (hot or cold, no difference)

  • 'it has successfully developed a material that could be used in a new battery with “significantly higher energy density” than its existing cell', and it would go into something like a hearing aid. How exciting!

  • Can Ukraine just use these in drones without need for adding any other explosives?

  • Just add it to the list of "breakthroughs" that haven't materialized on the market for some reason:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • but same capacity as today, and use the freed up space to add more cameras! We need more cameras!!!!!!
  • to do user-swappable batteries now? You will no longer have to sacrifice functionality at the altar of thinness. And then Samsung can copy you, and the rest of the industry can copy them. And we can have the functionality we lost due to all the courage.

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