Enovix Corporation announced the launch of the AI-1 platform, its Artificial Intelligence Class batteries for the next generation of mobile smartphones that require significantly higher total energy storage and power to perform AI functions locally. This revolutionary silicon-anode smartphone battery platform is protected by 190 Enovix architecture-specific patents that enable the use of 100% active silicon anodes. Last week, the company sampled its first 7,350 milliampere-hour (mAh) AI-1 batteries to a leading smartphone OEM for qualification in the first ever 100% silicon-anode battery smartphone launch.
With energy density exceeding 900 watt-hours per liter (Wh/L) and advanced capabilities for high discharge rate and long cycle life, Enovix believes AI-1 is the highest energy density battery commercially available in the market today. The company’s patented battery architecture overcomes the notorious silicon anode swelling problems, enabling exceptional performance without compromising safety or longevity. The higher energy density provided by the AI-1 enables smartphone manufacturers to take full advantage of AI-enabled applications without requiring frequent charging cycles.
AI-1 Performance Highlights
- >900 Wh/L energy density – highest commercially available
- Fast charging at 3C rates – 20% charged in 5 minutes, 50% charged in 15 minutes
- 900+ cycles in standard smartphone usage based on initial unit testing
- High discharge capability across wide temperature ranges – ideal for AI applications
- Passed Enovix Safety Test Suite (ESTS): drop, tumble, thermal abuse, and external short circuit test
“Enovix invented technology that led the industry in energy density for wearables in 2023 thanks to our unique architecture and the use of 100% silicon-anode technology,” said Dr. Raj Talluri, CEO of Enovix. “However, when I joined as CEO, I recognized that the portion of the wearables market immediately available to us would not be enough to support our full revenue plan, so I decided to take the opportunity to introduce our breakthrough battery to the much bigger smartphone market and the Enovix story to the smartphone accounts that I knew well from running Micron’s $6 billion mobile memory division. With the launch of AI Class technology, we are now sampling production AI-1 batteries to those customers who demand not only industry-leading energy density, but have other stringent requirements for cycle life, fast charging, and safety. Enovix is now positioned to support the next generation of smartphones in a 1.2-billion unit market.”
T.J. Rodgers, Enovix Chairman, said, “The AI Class technology is a breakthrough in utilizing the significant but difficult-to-realize benefits of silicon anodes to win in the AI Class smartphone market. The approximate 80,000 wearable batteries produced in our Fremont fab – and even the fab itself – all had to be re-engineered to meet the challenges of the first AI-1 battery. To move from small wearable batteries – with low power consumption and 500-cycle life – to the big, high-power, AI Class batteries, we had to change the anode (five times), the cathode (three times), the electrolyte (ten-plus times), and even the stainless-steel constraint and separator. Each experimental set took months to create and evaluate, and that effort was only possible because of the scale of our 50-engineer R&D group, which touts 30 PhDs. Making these major changes was the primary cause of the delay between my January 3, 2023, presentation to shareholders and the sampling of the AI-1. That two-year delay was frustrating, but we are now on the other side of the problem with 100 R&D man-years of distance added between us and our competitors. We have also discovered that our AI Class process, which produces 900 smartphone Wh/L of energy density, will produce wearable batteries meeting 2023 smartwatch requirements with over 1,000 Wh/L of energy density due to the added capabilities of the AI Class process.
Rodgers continued, “An AI-1 battery, built in our Malaysian production facility, is shown in the figure. While it is only 1.79 cubic inches in volume, it holds 7.35 amp-hours of charge and 26.3 watt-hours of energy. Humans cannot comprehend the high rate of energy use in the AI world because it is dissipated invisibly by charging and discharging the 100 billion transistors on a modern AI chip. In the Figure, we also show the same 26.3 Whrs of energy applied to a human-scale problem, lifting a 4,948-pound truck to a working height of 4.7 feet on a commercially available hydraulic lift, three times on one battery charge.
Rodgers concluded, “We have over $200 million in the bank and thank our shareholders for supporting us on every step of our journey. I started at Enovix in 2012 and have learned that making a new state-of-the-art battery is a decade-long marathon, a lot more difficult than a one-generation change in semiconductors under Moore’s Law. It all started that way for the Sony corporation, which took 10 years to bring the first lithium-ion battery to market in 1991. Fortunately, we expect future generations of the AI Class technology to reuse this foundation, allowing us to raise the bar on energy density progressively as we transfer each new AI process modification to our Malaysian factory.”
Click here to learn more about the Battery hub listed on everything PE.
