It supports both narrow voltage direct charging (NVDC) and hybrid power buck-boost (HPBB) charging for notebooks, ultrabooks, tablets, and power banks using the reversible USB Type-C connector cable.

Through firmware control, it can switch between the two modes, providing a low-cost and small means of efficiently processing a full range of power levels. The charger uses the company’s advanced R3 modulation technology for light-load efficiency and fast transient response to extend battery runtime. Internal reconfigurable registers allow the use of a smaller inductor for HPBB mode to achieve higher efficiencies across multiple power levels.

Charging, system bus regulation, and protection features are delivered using NFETs for efficiency and to optimise the bill of materials. The charger can operate with only a battery, only an adapter, or both connected. It takes DC input power from conventional adapters, travel adapters, and USB Type-C power delivery (PD) ports, and safely charges battery packs with up to four-cell Li-ion series batteries.

In NVDC mode, it automatically selects the adapter or battery as the source for system power. NVDC operation also supports turbo mode by turning on the Bgate FET to limit adapter current at the adapter’s current limit set point. The initial start-up state is NVDC before the system controller’s firmware changes the configuration to HPBB. In higher power HPBB mode, the charger supports bypass, bypass plus charging, reverse turbo-boost mode, and reverse turbo-boost mode plus charging.

The charger provides 5.0 to 20V reverse buck, boost, or buck-boost operation to the adapter port (OTG mode). This allows configurations to support USB-C PD output for fast charging programmable power supply (PPS) ports. Direct charging the battery can also be enabled by bypassing the charger in PPS mode.

The reconfigurable charging architecture also allows designers to use the charger for multi-port configurations while remaining fully compliant with the USB PD3.0 standard.

Several digital telemetry, fault monitoring and protection features are provided. There is also a supplemental power mode that allows the input bias capacitor to store energy and release it during high power demand.

The USB-C buck-boost battery charger is available now in a 4.0 x 4.0mm, 32-lead TQFN package.