National and ARM license energy-saving technology

National Semiconductor and chip designer ARM have begun to license their PowerWise technology, which can potentially cut the power consumption of chips inside handhelds and cell phones by up to 75 percent. PowerWise consists of a chip-core design provided by National and an energy manager from ARM. Although power consumption is a larger problem in notebooks and desktops, the demands on cell phone batteries are increasing as phones are being used to troll the Web and send or receive video.