The lithium-ion battery maker has raised $45 million in a third round of funding. It also has signed its second contract manufacturing deal, an agreement with China’s GP Batteries, which will give it the capacity to churn out a million batteries a month by the end of 2008. In all, Boston-Power has raised more than $68 million in funding.

Hewlett-Packard plans to release a notebook sporting one of Boston’s Sonata Toshiba laptop battery this year, and other large computer makers are currently in the final testing phases with the Sonata, Boston-Power CEO Christina Lampe-Onnerud said in an interview. (Last year, HP was still testing the battery.)

Boston-Power also has hatched plans to move into making large format lithium-ion toshiba pa3383u-1brs that could be used in plug-in hybrid cars. The current Sonata batteries for notebooks are based on small format cells, and each cell provides about 4.4 amp hours of power. Conventional notebook batteries provide about 2.6 amp hours. (Amp hours measure how much power a battery can store.)

Plug-in hybrids require toshiba pa3384u-1brs with cells that can provide 5 to 10 amp hours. Boston Power, in its labs, has come up with batteries that get into this range, but they are still in the experimental stage. (A battery for a plug-in will also contain far more cells than a typical six- to nine-cell notebook battery.)

“We have solved a fundamental problem for large cells,toshiba pa3285u-1brs,” Lampe-Onnerud said. “We will take the same time to make sure it is fine-tuned for the appropriate market.”

Boston-Power is one of a number of relatively new companies trying to improve the humble toshiba pa3191u-1brs, particularly the now familiar lithium-ion ones. A favorite of notebook makers and consumer electronics manufacturers, lithium-ion batteries can hold more energy than competing types of batteries.

Unfortunately,toshiba pa3166u-1brs, they also come with a glaring side effect. They can short on occasion, resulting in a “runaway thermal reaction” in industry parlance. In layman’s terms, that’s a fire or an explosion. Recalls in 2006 cost Sony millions of dollars.

Some companies have tinkered with the internal chemistry of the toshiba pa3331u-1brs. Notebooks contain lithium cobalt batteries. Altair Nanotechnologies and EnerDel have devised lithium titanate batteries, while others have come up with lithium potassium batteries. The change in chemistry lowers the risk of explosions, but also lowers the energy density. Lower energy density directly leads to lower mileage or runtime on laptops. Others are looking at getting rid of lithium altogether and switching to a rechargeable zinc battery.

By contrast, Boston-Power has largely kept the internal chemistry the same and instead fine-tuned the other elements that make up a toshiba pa3399u-1brs. (Lampe-Onnerud and other members of the Boston-Power executive team have worked in the lithium-ion industry for years.) The can, or outside casing around the battery cells, on the Sonata is made from a metal alloy that is stronger than the iron cans used with conventional notebook batteries and, thus, will remain intact in the case of a thermal reaction or fire, according to the company.

Boston-Power also spent a lot of time on the interrupt system, which prompts the battery to shut down permanently if there is danger of a thermal reaction. The company can’t guarantee the batteries will never have problems, but it has added safety features not seen in ordinary toshiba pa3250u-1brs,toshiba pa3356u-1brs ,toshiba pa3291u-1brs , toshiba pa3506u-1brs , toshiba pa3591u-1brs.