Recent Improvements and Future Developments in Portable Batteries and their Associated Electronics

The portable telecommunications market (cellular phones, etc) represents a major outlet for batteries in the next five years. The compactness, light weight, extended autonomy and low price required for mass market telephone sets are also needed for the batteries. To meet these demands, Saft is developing and manufacturing batteries with a range of different technologies (Nickel-Cadmium, Nickel- Metal Hydride, Lithium-Ion) offering a variety of performance/price ratios. Saft´s new batteries are presented and their test performances for a GSM-type application are described. When optimizing battery performance and ensuring user safety, these multiple technologies entail system constraints on chargers, charging methods etc. Saft has therefore custom-designed a charger (presented here) for portable telecommunications applications, which accepts two different battery technologies.