In a shocker for handheld fans looking forward to some help from fuel cells,
EE Times UK is reporting that fuel cells are not going to be any help after all.
Due to heat issues associated with miniaturization, the real barrier is not generating more power, but being able to use it more efficiently because of heat dissipation problems.
"As more functions are embedded in the mobile phone, the communications industry is facing a power consumption problem — and unfortunately it is one that cannot be answered by the fuel cell or other battery alternatives, according to Yrjo Neuvo, formerly executive vice president and CTO for Nokia Mobile Phones, who now serves as a technology advisor to the company."
"Smart phones are leveraging multicore architectures to get the performance they need, Neuvo observed but said fuel cells are not really any use as a mobile phone cannot consume more than 3 W to 6 W depending on its size, as it would then require active cooling. As active cooling is not an option better system and IC design must be the ways forward, as they have been before, Neuvo said."
Also, we find that while mobile communications has been moving from predominantly analog circuitry to digital circuitry, it has begun to reverse itself. The digital circuits are shrinking and the bulk of the microchips are going to be dominated now by analog RF components. The situation gets worse when we get SDR ("software defined radio" which allows it to support any radio standard simply with programming changes).