USB Type-C and power delivery 101 - Ports and connections

Gayathri Vasudevan
embedded.com (May 08, 2017)

USB Type-C is the newly introduced and powerful interconnect standard for USB. When paired with the new Power Delivery (PD) specification, Type-C offers enhancements to the existing USB 3.1 interconnect that lower the cost and simplify the implementation of power delivery over USB. From a form factor perspective, the USB Type-C connector combines multiple USB connectors – Micro-B, Type-A, and Type-B – in a reversible connector measuring only 2.4 mm in height (see Figure 1). Type-C allows developers to also combine multiple protocols in a single cable, including DisplayPort, PCIe or Thunderbolt. Bandwidth is double that of USB 3.0, increasing to 10 Gbps with SuperSpeed+ USB3.1. Finally, the USB Type-C connector can deliver up to 100 W. This enables a wider range of applications to operate using USB (see Figure 2). For more details, watch An Introduction to USB Type-C video and Type-C Basics.

In this two part series, we describe power delivery with USB Type-C, starting with ports and connectors in this article, followed by the power delivery protocol in part two.

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