USB 3.2 products: USB 3.0 Adopters Agreement, USB 2.0 Adopters Agreement plus the “USB Power Delivery Specification” Adopters Agreement While USB was once used as mainly for data communication with limited charging capabilities, many devices now use a USB primarily for charging. This includes many mobile phones, computers, and plenty of other devices. However, this can lead to some issues as certain devices or cables are not compatible with other types of ports. Compounding that is the fact that there are speed differences between different types of USB. Case in point, Type C is faster than USB 3.0 which in turn is faster than 2.0. This leads to a lot of e-waste as people are constantly buying new cables or devices when USB technology advances further.

Aside from the elevation of convenience, this USB 3.2 upgrade also brought about a wave in the technology industry best known as PD (Power Delivery) 3.0. What’s new with PD 3.0?

USB Power Delivery versions compared

However, this issue of compatibility is about to be a thing of the past with the introduction of the USB Power Delivery Specification. USB Power Delivery (or PD, for short) is a single charging standard that can be used all across USB devices. Normally, each device charged by USB will have their own separate adapter, but not anymore. One universal USB PD will be able to power a wide variety of different devices. While looking at various electronic devices, you may have seen the term “fast charging”. What does this have to do with PD 3.0 or QC 3.0? In a word, nothing. It’s simply a measurement of how fast a battery can charge. In general, a standard 1 amp charger charges at 5 watts, which is ordinary USB. Conversely, fast charging batteries can charge at 12 watts or higher.

Voltcraft CQCP2400 operating instructions" (PDF) (User manual). Voltcraft. Output voltage/current 5 V/DC, max. 2400 mA or 9 V/DC, max. 1670 mA or 12 V/DC, max. 1250 mA Announced in 2021, the USB PD Revision 3.1 specification is a major update to enable delivering up to 240W of power over full featured USB Type-C ® cable and connector. Prior to this update, USB PD was limited to 100W using a solution based on 20V using USB Type-C cables rated at 5A. The USB Type-C specification has also been updated to Release 2.1 to define 240W cable requirements, and with the updated USB PD protocol and power supply definition, this extends the applicability of USB power delivery to a large number of applications where 100W wasn't adequate. USB Power Delivery offers the following features: For more than 24 years, the Universal Serial Bus (USB) protocol has made its mark on the way that technology works and how users interact with their devices. A new version of the USB spec puts additional demands on testing regimes that wring out power-handling options.For power delivery to devices, the key characteristics include a fixed-voltage supply, stable current, and the ability to handle dynamic loads. For battery charging, the source must deliver variable voltage and current and account for charging rate and thermal constraints. Most battery manufacturers recommend beginning with a constant current and gradually increasing voltage followed by constant voltage and gradual reduction in current. A representative USB PD 3.0 compliance test setup featuring Teledyne LeCroy’s Voyager M310P test platform. This setup handles the test suites for both PD 2.0 and PD 3.0. The platform, which has native Type-C ports, can test both sources and sinks. Starting with the USB Power Delivery 2.0 fast charging standard, it was presented to the public in August, 2014. This has the USB Type-C interface, being one of the best known and more used around the world, and although it does not have another type of interface, which could be seen as negative, it has very good functions, among which are charging, data transmission, and audio transmission. With the USB PD 2.0, you can get the voltages 5V3A, 9V3A, 12V3A, 15V3A, 20V5A, in addition to its maximum charging power that reaches the 100W. After a power loss, the sink must be monitoring V CC. When V CC goes low for 30-60 µsec, that constitutes a Fast Role Swap request, and the sink then becomes the source by supplying 5 V to the bus. The key here is that this FRS capability is relevant only for Dual-Role Power (DRP) ports that can alternate between sink and source roles. TL;DR: Full-speed charging via MagSafe currently works if you have Apple’s 20-watt power adapter. The accessory will eventually achieve the same charging speed with future USB Power Delivery 3.0 chargers that have been update to support the particular power profile that Apple is using to provide the optimum amount of power.