Solid-state thin film batteries are here to stay

Good news just in for thin-film, solid-state energy storage. Cymbet Corporation announced completion of the final phase of its 3^rd round of funding – closing out the session by raising $31 million. Overall, the company has raised over $66 million to date (company founded in 2000). Current round of financing will expand the company’s EnerChip^TM product sales and marketing initiatives as well as expand manufacturing capacity for the product.

Cymbet offers a rechargeable solid-state, thin film battery technology that offers electronics designers with a cost-effective alternative solution by providing a reliable, long lived, non-volatility energy source for common semiconductors. The company is classified as a chip company and their technology is not a chemical battery system but a solid-state component made with standard semi-conductor processes. Both coin battery cells and ultracapacitors do not run through the standard electronics assembly process – they are assembled outside of the automated processes because these technologies cannot withstand the temperatures that circuit boards and components are exposed to. Cymbet offers a unique value-proposition and technology that can be implemented during the automated process – company is setting the pace of the industry and market opportunities are lucrative.

The latest round of funds were supplied by a variety of well-known firms, including Perseus, LLC, Intel Capital Texas Instruments, Bekaert N.V., Helmet Capital, Cedar Point Capital, The Dow Chemical Company, and The IGNITE Group. Support from these companies creates a marked impact on the overall thin film energy storage industry.

“Cymbet is a recognized leader in the development of solid-state rechargeable energy storage devices used to supply back-up power for integrated circuits found in a wide range of electronic products,” said Bill Priesmeyer, CEO of Cymbet.

Some of the key applications that benefit from solid-state thin film energy sources are those that require a long-lasting (the life of the device), lightweight, eco-friendly, provide backup or bridging power, and other key features. Typically, conventional disposable batteries (such as primary lithium) have been the industry mainstay for this type of application. Sold-state thin film energy storage can provide these benefits as well as others including at the electronic design level – a 10-year component-class device that can go through the normal electronics assembling process either as a surface mount device (attached to a circuit board) or it can be mounted inside the chip package itself at the integrated circuit manufacturer’s level. Applications include: industrial controls, consumer electronics, hand-held wireless devices, medical devices, military equipment, wireless sensors, RFID tags, energy-efficient intelligent building systems, among others including Smart Grid opportunities.

The product can even open doors as an energy harvesting/scavenging enabler. This concept has been discussed for a long time, but one of the difficulties in this area is that most of the energy storage solutions available do not adequately address is the energy storage component. There is significant progress in the ability to gather the energy (transducer) by vibration, solar, and other methods. However, the issue is gathering small amounts of energy and reliably store it in a way that will trickle charge in small amounts, but store the energy efficiently and not self discharge quickly. Solid-state thin film energy storage can be the key.

In a challenging economic situation, Cymbet has been able to secure and close-out another aggressive funding round. Great news for this emerging, innovative company that has a real commercial product.