How Samsung And IBM’s New Chip Design Might Improve Phone Batteries
IBM and Samsung have co-developed a new VTFET semiconductor design that could result in the battery life of smartphones lasting up to one week.
You Are Reading :How Samsung And IBMs New Chip Design Might Improve Phone Batteries
Samsung and IBM have come up with a new way to design processors that allows for the transistors to be aligned vertically and to be more densely packed, potentially resulting in a number of benefits including longer batter life. As technology evolves, so do features found on common products, such as smartphones. However, each generation tends to push closer to certain hard limits, requiring companies to think outside of the box to continue making gains.
Manufacturers are always looking for ways to improve the battery life of smartphones. While some are working on newer battery technologies, most have adopted fast charging solutions that allow batteries to be recharged in the shortest possible time. Current chipsets follow a principle called Moore’s Law where the number of transistors on a chip are expected to double every two years. However, semiconductor manufacturers are continually reaching a major roadblock with the space to fit transistors decreasing nearly every generation.
A new Vertical Transport Field Effect Transistors (VTFET) design architecture brings multiple advantages including a significant reduction in power consumption when compared to other processes like FinFET. With IBM and Samsung’s VTFET, the space problem can be solved by stacking the transistors vertically instead of horizontally. IBM says that electric current flows vertically since the transistors are built perpendicular to the surface of the chip. This redesigned contact point results in greater current flow with a reduction in energy loss. When compared to a similarly scaled processor built using the FinFET process, the reduction in power consumption is as much as 85-percent. Apparently, performance is also doubled.
Better Battery Life For All
When applied to a mobile processor, the VTFET process could see smartphone batteries lasting over one week, due to the chip no longer requiring as much energy as before. This benefit of VTFET beats IBM’s 2nm chip technology unveiled in May 2021 which claims it has the potential of quadrupling cell phone battery life when compared to a phone powered by a 7nm chip. The VTFET process is also said to result in energy savings for chips used in cryptomining and data encryption, thus leaving a smaller carbon footprint.
All of these gains sound promising, but it still remains to be seen when the new architecture will be applied to chips. IBM says that innovation at its Albany Nanotech Complex is often directed towards commercialization, so it is safe to assume that it will eventually make it to the market in the future, albeit probably not anytime soon. In the meantime, IBM’s focus seems to be on its Samsung-made 5nm chips that will be used to power its server platforms.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/samsung-ibm-vtfet-semiconductor-design-vertical-battery-performance-benefits/