Beat power management challenges in advanced LTE smartphones

David McTernan, Renesas Mobile
EETimes (5/24/2012 8:30 AM EDT)

Ask any group of people about their phone, and while several may comment on the cool new features and apps, you are also sure to find several who complain about smartphone battery life. Mobile applications are the latest phenomenon causing a larger than normal spike in power demand. Multiple power-hungry functions, including high-speed graphics processing and mobile broadband connections, in addition to other radio connections that manage functions such as location, are all running simultaneously.

This power spike will have a significant impact on the mobile industry as handsets and user expectations evolve and more advanced air interfaces such as LTE become common. Whether they are mobile business warriors conducting work via the cloud on a tablet or smartphone, the geekiest gamers or somewhere in between, mobile devices users share two things in common. First, they expect their technology to work whenever and wherever they use it. Second, they are frustrated by battery issues.

There are, of course, short-term workarounds. For instance, some iPhone cases double as a battery, which extends the device battery life but trades that convenience for a significantly bulkier form factor. It works, however, it doesn╒t address the central problem: These devices require a lot of juice and frequent charging, which is, in most cases, inconvenient for users.

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