Consumers shook their heads when 100W (USB3.0) charging was introduced in 2016. “Who would ever need that much power, when most smartphones can charge on 10W?” Well, if the wave of recent 5G phones released in 2020 is any indication of things to come, 45W smartphone chargers will soon be commonplace.
And as charging power goes up, so does the importance of efficiency. USB-C’s latest PD 3.0 specification, specifically Programmable Power Supplies (PPS), is by far the most efficient charging solution on the market, and for that reason, will become the preferred choice for charging tomorrow’s smart phones, tablets and laptops.
The advantages of PD 3.0 (PPS) over PD 2.0 PD 2.0 allows a maximum limit of 7 Power Data Objects (PDOs), used to expose a source port’s power capabilities or a sink’s power requirements, transmitted within a PD message across the USB-C, CC pin. In contrast, PD 3.0, PPS offer a range of voltage and current PDOs.
Read this article from onsemi to learn more about the advantages of PD 3.0 (PPS), including how the sink can request voltage/current in finer granularity vs. Fixed PDOs which helps optimize the charging efficiency between the source and the sink.