Thin batteries market takes off

As much as 10 times thinner than incumbent coin cell batteries and often constructed from flexible materials, thin battery technologies are introducing disruptive new design options for conventional energy storage applications, writes msnbc.

Coin cells will remain the dominant technology for many uses, but emerging applications will provide thin batteries enough juice to grow from a $19 million market in 2008 to a market of over $250 million in 2014.

With a diversity of technologies vying for dominance, the thin battery market is currently up for grabs.

Semiconductor developer 4DS has secured additional funding from Poly Plant Project (PPP) as part of a multi-million dollar equity investment, states MarketWire.

PPP, based in Burbank, California, made its first investment in 4DS in December 2008, with additional funding contingent upon meeting milestones.

"We have been very impressed with 4DS's process technology and its potential to revolutionise the memory technology industry," said PPP's COO, Dan Feinberg.

In its continuing quest to spread GPU goodness, NVIDIA has developed a new programme designed to give a boost to some of the most innovative GPU computing start-ups, reports HPC Wire.

Called the GPU Ventures Programme, it's an initiative that combines direct NVIDIA investment with marketing, sales and distribution support.

The new programme is mostly targeted at companies developing CUDA-based applications and middleware for HPC and visual computing and is designed to fertilise the software ecosystem around NVIDIA's GPU computing business.