General > General Technical Chat
The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
Bassman59:
--- Quote from: Simon on June 12, 2022, 09:55:46 am ---Well our ever not very detailed BBC may have missed a lot of the detail of the law but I did not hear anything about standardising on a charging protocol. That is the sort of nuance that politicians miss out on too and end up making useless laws. If all they do is make a law about the connector they have just wasted their time and tax payer money enacting something that is good as saying that phones must always be charged with electricity.
--- End quote ---
You do realize that politicians don't actually write the laws themselves? They have staff, lawyers and professional expert advisors who actually do know what is involved. So, really, the law won't be about just the connector. I expect it to run to many pages of technical details.
Berni:
--- Quote from: Someone on June 12, 2022, 07:20:30 am ---
--- Quote from: Simon on June 12, 2022, 06:24:34 am ---As far as I am aware their is one fast charging system, it has several power/voltage levels but as there is a protocol used to negotiate this any charger and and phone are a match. I still do not see how mandating a USB-C socket on every phone helps...
--- End quote ---
....because USB-C is the only connector which the PD negotiation works on (it has some extra pins to help).
--- End quote ---
Yep the USB-C connector is part of how USB-PD works.
The problem with the higher fast charging rates is that the voltages and currents are becoming so high that arcing can become a significant problem. Especially on the latest standard that supports up to 48V 5A. You can genuinely weld steel using those power levels, or can actually kill a lot of general purpose relays. This is because mechanically disconnecting such a DC power line in can draw a good few millimeters of an arc. This would happen inside the USB connector when you unplug it during charging, the tiny pins would not survive that. If you are particularly unlucky the arc might even move over onto neighboring pins
So for this reason the USB-C connector has the CC1 and CC2 pins that are physically shorter. This way they only come into contact once all the power and ground pins have made contact. When unplugging these pins get interrupted first, telling the host to instantly cut the power and device to instantly stop drawing power, that way once the power pins start separating they are not carrying current anymore, and so no arc forms.
That being said the USB-C connector specification does not strictly require USB-PD support. It is optional much like other features like USB 3.0 or any of the fancy alternate modes for DisplayPort,Thunderbolt..etc. Heck technically it doesn't even require USB 2.0 since one possible use is analog audio, making it a glorified headphone jack.
jeremy:
--- Quote from: VK3DRB on June 12, 2022, 02:00:57 pm ---
--- Quote from: Simon on June 12, 2022, 10:42:04 am ---Where phones go the rest follow :)
--- End quote ---
You are pretty much correct. Some electronics parts are only available is VERY tiny micro BGA packages because mobile phones use them. You cannot get them in larger SMD packages. Quite annoying. No technical reason why, other than phones is where the $$$ and volume are.
--- End quote ---
Off topic, but there is a reason: flip-chip style CSPs are much cheaper for the manufacturer because there is a much lower packaging cost - no wirebonds, lead frames, overmolding, etc to deal with. “Just” melt some solder balls on the pads and you are done.
PlainName:
--- Quote from: Tooki ---None of that contradicts it requiring USB-C, since every single one of those standards is orthogonal to the others, and can be implemented with or without support for the other standards.
--- End quote ---
You love to unequivocally tell others they are wrong but can't handle it when you are, eh. You said:
--- Quote from: Tooki ---Nope. You’re probably thinking of the USB BC (battery charging) standard, which does work on type A/B connectors. But USB-PD is a separate standard) is USB-C only.
--- End quote ---
The fact is the spec explicitly says it's designed to work on non-USB-C. More from the spec:
--- Quote ---The USB Power Delivery specification assumes certified USB cables as defined in this specification or in the [USB 2.0],
[USB 3.1], or [USB Type-C 1.2] specifications.
For USB Type-A and USB Type-B connectors the existence of a large number of non-compliant legacy cables,
particularly ‘Y’ and ‘W’ cables are problematic. These kinds of cables, in combination with the higher voltages that PD
can deliver, have the potential to permanently damage the user’s equipment. PD defines mechanisms to detect USB
Type-A and USB Type-B PD capable cables.
For USB Type-C connectors, PD uses the certified USB cables and associated detection mechanisms as defined in [USB
Type-C 1.2].
--- End quote ---
Tooks, you were wrong - PD was specified to work over USB-A and USB-B as well.
tooki:
--- Quote from: dunkemhigh on June 13, 2022, 10:04:10 am ---
--- Quote from: Tooki ---None of that contradicts it requiring USB-C, since every single one of those standards is orthogonal to the others, and can be implemented with or without support for the other standards.
--- End quote ---
You love to unequivocally tell others they are wrong but can't handle it when you are, eh. You said:
--- End quote ---
And you conveniently just ignore that I replied to the two of you who pointed out my error:
--- Quote from: tooki on June 13, 2022, 03:16:40 am ---You’re right. I’ll be honest, I’d forgotten they ever envisioned it to be on the A and B connectors. The fact that, according to the 1.0 standard (which isn’t hard to find at all), it requires hardware keying on the full-size connectors or a capacitor in the micro-B plug —that is, a cable must expressly identify itself as PD-capable — I question whether any such equipment ever shipped. I can’t even find mention of any PD-capable non-C cables, nor photos of what the connectors even look like.
--- End quote ---
So not only can I “handle” it, I readily admit when I’m wrong.
My statement that the PD standard is orthogonal to the other standards you cited is correct.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version