Phone batteries could last a week with new chip, IBM and Samsung says

(IBM)Samsung and IBM had claimed that their new semiconductor chip design could give smartphones a week-long battery life.The new Vertical Transport Field Effect Transistors (VTFET) design will not yet be used in consumer chips, but the companies claim that they could offer “two times improvement in performance or an 85 percent reduction in energy use” compared to current designs.This is because, for chip manufacturers, Moore’s Law remains a tough challenge. The law states that the number of transistors in a chip doubles every two years, and makers are quickly running out of space.Transistors generally lie flat on the surface of the chip with the current flowering laterally, but with this new design the transistors can be arranged vertically – so electricity can flow up and down.This extends the limits of Moore’s Law, as chip designers can put more transistors into a…

Read more…