Qualcomm on Monday announced a new fast-charging standard that it says will bring faster charging speeds and better power efficiency to devices at a lower price-point. Called Quick Charge 3+, it is the latest addition to the company’s Quick Charge family that’s led by Quick Charge 4+, which was introduced back in 2017 with the Snapdragon 835.
According to Qualcomm, the new technology will be able to juice-up a battery from 0-50 percent in 15 minutes, which is 35 percent faster than previous generations. It will also have better thermal management, keeping the temperature 9 degrees Celsius cooler than is the case with older fast-charging standards, including Quick Charge 3.0. There are no details about the exact setup the company used to derive these results.
Quick Charge 3+ will work with standard USB type A-to-type C cables and accessories that support scalable voltage with 20mV steps from Quick Charge 4, which are more affordable for OEMs and consumers. It is also backward compatible with previous-generation Quick Charge devices. Newer devices will also work with Quick Charge 3+ accessories, said the company.
The technology is supported by two new PMICs, the SMB1395 and SMB1396, both of which allow OEMs to implement QC3+ using the same software implementation, and address different system requirement in terms of PCB design, charger IC location, etc. without needing to implement an external Over Voltage Protection (OVP) chip or sense resistor.
Quick Charge 3+ will be available first on the Snapdragon 765 & Snapdragon 765G SoCs, followed by other new Snapdragon platforms across tiers in 2020. Xiaomi’s Mi 10 Lite Zoom, powered by the Snapdragon 765G, is the world’s first smartphone with both Quick Charge 4+ and Quick Charge 3+ charging technologies.
