NEC develops razor-thin battery
It would be used in active RFID cards
IDG News Service - TOKYO -- Engineers at Japan's NEC Corp. have developed a flexible battery that is less than a millimeter thick and can be charged in half a minute, the company said.
The battery has been designed for use in applications such as active radio frequency identification (RFID) cards and could provide enough power to keep such cards running for several weeks before requiring a recharge, said Yoshimi Kubo, chief manager of fuel cell and battery research at NEC's fundamental and environmental research laboratories yesterday.
![]() |
Organic radical battery Photo Credit: NEC Corp |
One of the features of such batteries is their ability to be charged quickly. The device unveiled yesterday can be charged to about 80% of its capacity in about 30 seconds.
A prototype is being demonstrated this week at an NEC event in Tokyo. The battery measures about 4 centimeters square and has been fitted into a card that's about the same size as an identification or credit card. After a charge, it can keep an LED embedded in the card lighted for about 20 minutes before requiring a recharge.
Such thin batteries are important for active-type RFID cards. Most RFID cards or tags are passive devices that aren't capable of transmitting data on their own and work when brought into proximity with a radio field from a tag reader. This typically means they work over a range of several centimeters. Active tags are more like miniature radios and can transmit over longer distances, which means they can be read without having to bring them as close to the tag reader.
NEC said it has no plans for commercial production of the device or an estimate of how much it would cost at such a time as production begins.
It's also not the first organic radical battery application developed by NEC.
A larger version of the battery was shown earlier this year and proposed as a possible future emergency power source for PCs. Because the battery is capable of delivering a large amount of power in a short period, NEC demonstrated it being used to power a PC for about 15 seconds, which is enough time for the PC to back up important data and shut downproperly.
That application used four batteries, each of which measure 55 by 43 millimeters and are 4mm thick, which is about the same size as a stack of three credit cards. Each cell weighs 20 grams. Like the prototype on show this week, NEC didn't have any immediate commercialization plans for the technology.



- Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet
- Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.
- The Laptop Dilemma: How to Maximize Productivity and Lower the Burden on IT
- Download Now
- Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory
- As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
- Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.
- Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
- Top Solutions and Tools to Prevent Devastating Malware
- Custom malware frequently goes undetected. According to Forrester Research, the best way to reduce risk of breach is to deploy file integrity monitoring...
- Streamline Compliance and Increase ROI
- Streamline, simplify, and automate compliance related activities; especially those that impact multiple business units. This white paper from NetIQ, outlines solutions that will... All Hardware White Papers
- Optimizing Networks for the Cloud
- Join guest speaker, Rohit Mehra, IDC Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, to explore current trends, discuss best practices for optimizing Data Center and...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
- Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware
- Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn...
- Virtualize Business-Critical Applications with Confidence
- Virtualizing business-critical applications has become a key focus for organizations as they move along their virtualization journey. With the launch of VMware vSphere®... All Hardware Webcasts
