Product Direction
As the need for advancements in portable power increases, MTI Micro is developing Mobion® cord-free rechargeable power pack technology as a superior solution for powering the multi-billion dollar portable electronics market. MTI Micro's strategy is to enter the market with low power products for use in the consumer electronics industry for applications like cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players and other handheld electronic devices. At the same time, the Company is exploring possibilities of adapting its low power platform for use in the military market for applications like sensors. Below are some examples of prototypes and/or concepts developed by the Company to demonstrate technology advancements and flexible design solutions for future products. These range from an external power source to embedded micro fuel cell solutions.
Since 2006, MTI Micro has been working on a number of external power pack prototypes designed to power portable electronics. In August 2006, MTI Micro demonstrated a prototype (far left) with 95Wh of continuous run-time exceeding the energy density of a lithium-ion battery. Then, in November 2006, the company produced another prototype 40% smaller in size (middle), and by the summer of 2007, another one over 30% smaller (right) than the second one. Aside from its size reductions, the prototypes incorporate MTI Micro's state-of-the-art Mobion® chip technology which is the heart of the system. In less than a year of development, the most recent prototype demonstrates a total size reduction of 60% to less than 200ccs. In addition, the prototype is refillable and provides continuous run-time for power hungry portable electronic products. With one fuel cartridge, the latest prototype was designed to fully charge an average cell phone battery over eight times — for an average user, this would power a cell phone for approximately one month; and allow customers to take over 6000 pictures on a high end professional digital camera.
To demonstrate MTI Micro’s Mobion® technology as an attached power source, MTI Micro developed a direct methanol fuel cell camera-grip prototype for digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras. The prototype is designed to provide twice as much energy as existing camera battery-pack grips of the same size. Also, the Mobion® camera grip can be refilled with methanol for instant power, which allows photographers the freedom to use the camera any time, anywhere, without having to recharge from a wall outlet. Additionally, with today’s DSLR cameras being designed with more features, such as high-definition video recording and playback, battery life becomes a key issue. MTI Micro’s camera grip prototype demonstrates the Company’s ability to remove power consumption issues for manufacturers, so that they can keep innovating and developing new products.
To demonstrate how Mobion® can be embedded into handheld electronics, MTI Micro has designed a Mobion® powered Smartphone concept model. The integrated Mobion® power pack demonstrates the miniaturization progress necessary for integration into portable electronic devices and the future product direction for Mobion® in the consumer market.