August 28, 2009: mPhase Technologies says that work with a MEMS foundry partner has determined that a recently-discovered polymer coating for its Smart NanoBattery “appear[s] to be able to be replicated in a foundry manufacturing environment.”

The coating was previously found to prevent short circuiting and provide electrical isolation on conductive surfaces of the battery’s porous membrane while providing better activation control, the company explained in a statement. The coated membrane physically separates the liquid electrolyte and solid electrodes, enabling a potentially infinite shelf life. Next step is for mPhase and its (unnamed) foundry partner to transfer technical testing results with additional dielectric coating materials and processing methods into a production environment, which should allow for more consistent and uniform development of the membrane structure to which the coating is applied.

Earlier this year the company said it had improved a manufacturing technique to maximize the number of usable silicon based electrowettable membranes in its Smart NanoBattery, leading to higher yields, greater cost efficiency, and ultimately profitability.

The electrowettable reserve battery is being developed under a US Army research grant as a long-term continuous power supply for computer memory backup and potential wireless sensor applications.