Battery Technology and Moore's Law - Ultralife Batteries

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Battery Technology and Moore's Law

Question:
Why hasn’t energy-storage technology seemed to keep up with other technological advances. Is this actually the case, or are gadgets just using more power than they used to? What are some of the more promising developments in this arena?

Answer:
Battery technology can not keep up with Moore’s Law in the same way semiconductors can. Batteries are miniature chemical engineering plants, producing electrons at the expense of electrochemical reactions with their own behavior and as such, these active systems do not scale in the same manner as passive semiconductors. This is because battery technology is a prisoner of physics, the periodic table, manufacturing technology and economics. Change happens incrementally as performance improvements require several years and changes to fine tuned production methods to transition successfully from laboratory testing to mass production to prove their performance and economic worth. In addition, gadgets do use more power than they used to due to increasing functionality, higher power components and feature creep. Electrical engineers that take a “whole systems” approach to the design of ever increasing power requirements to the power platform tend to fare better than those who do not.

The most promising developments in regard to increasing rechargeable battery capacity and overall functionality include the introduction and use of new intermetallic anode materials, improved safety features, performance stability at high temperatures and high rates of discharge and production techniques that allow for the energy of the battery to increase without losing all important and critical discharge power rate. The typical trade off is that as one increases the energy of the battery, the power or rate at which the battery discharges and its safety decreases. As one increases the power, the energy of the battery tends to decrease. The challenge for battery manufacturers for hybrid and plug in hybrid electric vehicles is to search for and implement the design features that provide an optimum balance between energy, power, user safety and economic feasibility.

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