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TOKYO—Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) today announced that the company has developed a highly efficient CMOS power amplifier that extends talk time for mobile phones. The development will be introduced at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference at San Francisco on February 18, 2013.

All mobile phone have power amplifiers to communicate with base stations. The output power is affected by distance from a base station or the characteristics of the information. A typical power amplifier uses a single supply voltage to generate high output power, to support long distance communication. However, this degrades efficiency by consuming too much power in locations where low output power is sufficient. Supply voltage control is an effective approach to improving efficiency but is not commonly employed as it increases the component count.

Toshiba has developed a new technology to control voltage supply that doubles efficiency at maximum. It utilizes two half-sized amplifiers with their own power supply switches that can be switched between half and full voltages, securing efficient control of output power. The technology requires no external components and is suitable for mobiles phone applications.

Mr. Kohei Onizuka, a research scientist of Toshiba Corporate Research & Development Center who worked for the development said, "We see this advance as only the first step forward in our development. We will continue to improve the technology and enhance its performance, aiming to bring it to high-powered next generation mobile phones and smart phones in a couple of years."