New Chip Technology Uses Less Power

Increasing power demands for portable devices has often been cited as a driver for the adoption of advanced battery and fuel cell technologies.

Intel and IBM have just announced a new technology(CNN Money), which will allow further miniaturisation of transistors on integrated circuits: "Transistors can be made smaller, potentially doubling the total number in a given area, their speed can be increased by more than 20 percent, or power leakage can be cut by 80 percent or more."

We will see small portable fuel cells on the market within the next two years, initially as battery re-chargers. Integrated devices will take much longer to come to market.  However, display manufacturers, chip designers and advanced battery companies (Boston Power recently raised 15.6 million for their lithium ion technology) are continually raising the bar.

Bottom Line: It will happen, but it won't happen overnight.