STB Chip’s Rechargeable Smart Battery

By Digital Trends Staff January 7, 2005

STB Chip Corporation (STBX: PK), a smart battery chipset company, has developed the world’s first portable cellular phone-use smart battery pack that extends talk-time battery life for mobile handsets by 800 percent. The company will showcase products at the Consumer Electronics Show 2005 beginning January 6 in Las Vegas, NV.

The technology users can charge their cellular phones or other mobile devices while on the move, regardless of where they are. The smart battery pack, with an estimated lifecycle of five years, will sell at $60 per pack.

MPB 4000, about the size of a mobile handset, is a high capacity portable rechargeable battery system. The lithium-ion cell portable battery pack has power capacity of 4,600-mAh, about fourfold the 1,000-1,300-mAh capacity of regular rechargeable battery of cell phones. The greater the capacity, the longer the battery life.

The product is a smart battery that displays an accurate amount of reserve energy held by the battery. Customers can tell how much power remains in the battery pack by the light-emitting diode (LED) battery power gauge.

Equipped with an integrated circuit (IC) microchip, MPB 4000 identifies its chemistry and tells the charger which charge algorithm to apply while protecting the battery from overcharging, under-discharging and short-circuiting.

“Demand for external rechargeable battery packs will surge in the future as countries launch digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) services. As current rechargeable batteries only support roughly two hours of continuous use time, DMB phone users definitely feel the need for a portable battery pack that extends the battery life of their handsets,” said Sung Ki-suk, CEO of STB Chip.

“U.S. companies and service providers have shown significant interest in our product. Japanese mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo has also expressed interest in purchasing our new products with an initial order of approximately 60,000 units,” Sung added.

Sung expects to export as many as one million units of the portable mobile battery pack to North America and Northern Europe next year. The company is currently in negotiations with large discount chain stores in the USA.

Digital Trends Staff

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