Skip to Content

Tower Power

The towers used to relay calls to cell-phone users are sprouting everywhere. But the skyrocketing demand for cell phones and for wireless Internet access overwhelms the relay stations’ capacity as fast as companies can erect them. A radio-frequency transistor technology created by electrical engineer Jayant Baliga at North Carolina State University could help stem the tide by allowing towers to handle 10 times their current signal capacity.

Baliga says his new chip design will make the transistors used in relaying calls cheaper and smaller, and it will boost the power of the towers’ signal amplifiers as well. That should allow wireless stations to handle more calls at once, send data faster and help avoid the interference that occasionally results in users overhearing others’ conversations. Baliga has founded a company called Silicon Wireless in Raleigh, NC, to commercialize the technology and has received funding from Fairchild Semiconductor. The first chips using the transistors could be in cell towers by the end of the year.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI

The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models. 

The Biggest Questions: What is death?

New neuroscience is challenging our understanding of the dying process—bringing opportunities for the living.

Rogue superintelligence and merging with machines: Inside the mind of OpenAI’s chief scientist

An exclusive conversation with Ilya Sutskever on his fears for the future of AI and why they’ve made him change the focus of his life’s work.

How to fix the internet

If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond the big platforms.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.