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University of Wisconsin researchers say they have developed a "chill pill" to help cool down overheated cell phones and improve signal quality while using less battery power.
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"When you've been talking on a cell phone for a long time, you can feel how hot it gets," said Zhenqiang "Jack" Ma, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison. "This kind of overheating has always been a barrier to improving wireless communications."
Amp Ramp
When cell callers hit the "send" button, a power amplifier in the phone switches on, sends the signal, and drains the batteries.
Power-hungry amplifiers can "heat up and, in some cases, even burn out," Ma explained.
To prevent overheating, power-amplifier manufacturers add current-controlling devices called "ballasting resistors." While they stabilize the temperature, they also sacrifice power output.
"Less power means weaker cell-phone signals and batteries that need to be charged more often," Ma told NewsFactor.
Overcoming overheating is one of "few ways left to improve cell-phone technology by increasing the amount of data that can be transmitted, increasing battery efficiency, and decreasing hardware cost," Ma added. "The last major advance in this area occurred in 1989."
With a device that dissipates rather than concentrates amplifier heat over an even, widespread area, Ma and his students now may have that next major advance.
"If the heat-transfer mechanism within the devices is fully understood," Ma said, "the solution to overcome the overheating becomes quite obvious."
Hot Innovation
Ma and his research team rearranged the energy cells within a power amplifier so that any heat produced dissipates uniformly, rather than moving toward the center.
"This rearrangement reduces the overall temperature, which enhances overall performance," said University of Wisconsin spokesperson Emily Carlson.
"We ave found a new power-device structure that can counterbalance heat transfer, restoring the degradation in capability associated with the present design," says Ma.
With this innovation, cell phones could receive more data, reach towers farther away, and stay powered longer.
"Cell phones not only will be better, but also cheaper to make," Ma said.
"Within the next 10 years, the new structure designed by the Wisconsin engineers could become the industry standard for any type of wireless communications device," Carlson told NewsFactor.
http://science.newsfactor.com/
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Posted: 2004-04-13 14:15:49
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