A Primer on USB Type-C® and USB Power Delivery Applications and Requirements
At a glance
This paper serves as an introduction to USB Type-C and USB Power Delivery (PD) examining various applications and their data and power requirements.
Data and power roles 1 | Typical data and power roles vary within end equipment with regards to the
USB Type-C specification. |
| USB 3.1 Gen 1 (SuperSpeed) and Gen 2
(SuperSpeed+) 2 | Applications that require transfer rates faster than 480 Mbps will need to
leverage either USB 3.1 Gen 1 (SuperSpeed) or Gen 2 (SuperSpeed+). |
| USB Type-C pinout and
reversibility 3 | The USB Type-C connector includes several new pins compared to USB Type-A
and Type-B connectors. |
Authors
The USB Type-C connector ecosystem addresses the evolving needs of modern platforms and devices, and the trend toward smaller, thinner and lighter form-factor designs. Additionally, the modification of USB PD for the Type-C connector helps address the needs of power-hungry applications.
Introduction
You may have heard about USB Type-C’s reversible cable. When you think about the requirements for a particular system, however, you may be unsure about what’s necessary and what’s just “nice to have.” In this paper, we will introduce the most basic USB Type-C applications and work our way up to full-featured USB Type-C and USB PD applications. But first, let’s review the evolution of USB data, starting with USB 1.0 through USB 3.1 Gen 2.
Table 1 lists the maximum transfer rate of each USB data transfer-related specification. The standard started with USB1.x supporting 1.5 Mbps (low speed) and 12 Mbps (full speed), but evolved to support 10 Gbps (SuperSpeed+) with USB 3.1 Gen 2.
| Specification | Data rate name | Maximum transfer rate |
|---|---|---|
| USB1.0 and USB 1.1 | Low Speed | 1.5 Mbps |
| Full Speed | 12 Mbps | |
| USB 2.0 | High Speed | 480 Mbps |
| USB 3.0 | SuperSpeed | 5 Gbps |
| USB 3.1 | SuperSpeed+ | 10 Gbps |
Table 2 shows the evolution of USB power, starting with USB 2.0 through USB PD 3.0. The overall trend has been to increase the maximum power to address the growing needs of platforms and devices. Without USB PD, you can support up to 5 V at 3 A (15 W) with just USB Type-C alone. However, with USB PD, you can support up to 20 V at 5 A (100 W) within the USB Type-C ecosystem.
| Specification | Maximum voltage | Maximum current | Maximum power |
|---|---|---|---|
| USB 2.0 | 5 V | 500 mA | 2.5 W |
| USB3.0 and USB 3.1 | 5 V | 900 mA | 4.5 W |
| USB BC 1.2 | 5 V | 1.5 A | 7.5 W |
| USB Type-C 1.2 | 5 V | 3 A | 15 W |
| USB PD 3.0 | 20 V | 5 A | 100 W |
