Mobile phone battery life has always been a problem. In addition to increasing battery capacity, what other good ways can improve the battery life of mobile phones? At this time, fast charging of mobile phones has become another solution.
Classification of fast charging
Thanks to users' high demand for mobile phone battery life, in addition to increasing the battery capacity of mobile phones as safely as possible, higher-speed charging technologies have emerged.
There are roughly two types of mobile phone fast charging technologies on the market, one is high voltage and low current, and the other is low voltage and high current.
Why are there two options? Quite simply, if you want to increase the charging speed, you can only do so by increasing the power of the charging.
According to the physical formula power (W) = voltage (V) x current (A), it can be known that if the power is increased, the voltage is increased, or the current is increased.
If you want to ask which of the two fast charging methods is better, or is it safer to charge? To be precise, there is not much difference between the two in terms of safety and speed.
Relatively speaking, the high-voltage fast charge requires the internal circuit IC to perform a second step-down, which will generate a certain amount of heat. Therefore, this aspect needs to be considered in the design. But because the current is low, the requirements for the wire are not high, and the compatibility is very good.
Typical representatives are Qualcomm's QC fast charge and PD fast charge.
Low voltage fast charge does not need to perform secondary voltage reduction of the fuselage, and the heat dissipation performance will be better, but because the current will be relatively large, for safety reasons, the requirements for the charging line will be higher, you ca n’t use such ordinary lines. Charging will increase the cost.
Typical representatives: OPPO VOOC flash charge, Huawei SCP (22.5W), etc.
In fact, there is an updated fast charge technology called charge pump technology, which is characterized by high voltage + large current.
The mobile phone has an independent MCU controller that is responsible for the fast charging function. It detects and controls the charging status in real time and communicates with the original charger. It adjusts the output power of the charger as needed, improves the conversion efficiency, and the charging speed is fast. Can achieve 65W;
However, there are also higher requirements in design and wire, and the cost is relatively high. Typical representatives are OPPO SuperVOOC, vivo Super FlashCharge, Huawei SCP (40W), etc.
Charging technology from phone makers
Huawei
As a leading domestic mobile phone brand, Huawei has its own development history in fast charging. Huawei's fast charging technology is divided into two types, namely high-voltage FCP, low-voltage SCP (22.5W), and charge pump SCP (40W) and SCP (55W).
FCP charging specifications are 9V/2A, a total of 18W. Although it does not seem to be too fast now, it was already one of the fastest commercial charging technologies on the market. The first mobile phone equipped with this technology was Huawei Mate8.
The charging specification of SCP (22.5W) is 5V/4.5A or 4.5V/5A, and the peak value is 22.5W. There is an increase in speed. After switching to a low voltage solution, the charging heat is reduced. The first phone equipped with this technology was a Huawei Mate9 phone.
SCP (40W) charging specifications are 10V/4A, and the peak is 40W. Due to the use of a more efficient charge pump technology, the speed increase is very obvious. The first phone equipped with this technology was Huawei Mate20 Pro.
The charging specification of SCP (55W) is 20V/2.75A, with a peak of 55W, but it is currently only used on Huawei Mate X mobile phones, and there are not many models used.
vivo
Vivo also performs very well in fast charge technology. The more well-known solutions are-dual-engine flash charge, vivo FlashCharge and vivo Super FlashCharge.
The twin-engine flash charge charging specification is 9V/2A, with a peak of 18W. It uses a high-voltage and low-current solution and is compatible with Qualcomm's QC2.0 protocol. The first phone equipped with this technology was the vivo Y35.
vivoFlashCharge is divided into two generations, of which the 1.0 version has a charging specification of 10V/2.25A and a peak of 22.5W, and the later 2.0 version has a charging specification of 10V/3A and a peak of 30W.
Mobile phones equipped with this technology include vivo X27 series (22.5W), vivo S5 (30W) and so on.
Vivo Super FlashCharge is faster. Due to the charge pump technology, the charging specification has reached 11V/4A, the peak is 44W, the charging speed is fast, and the official data is full in 45 minutes. The first mobile phone to be equipped was iQOO Monster.
However, this is not the strongest charging technology of vivo. In last year's vivo innovation day event, vivo demonstrated the technology with a charging power of 120W and a full 4000mAh battery in 13 minutes. However, the technology is currently on display and is not officially commercial.
OPPO
To be honest, OPPO is one of the earliest manufacturers of fast-charge mobile phones in China. It is famous for charging for five minutes and two hours of talk. Its mark is that it prefers low voltage and high current fast charging technology. The more famous ones are VOOC and SuperVOOC.
VOOC has actually been upgraded in four versions. The first three versions have charging specifications of 5V/4A and a peak value of 20W. Typical low-voltage charging technology. Although the specifications are unchanged between the first three versions, they all improve charging efficiency; The latest VOOC 4.0 technology will increase the peak value to 30W, which shortens the charging time by 12% compared to 3.0. The first mobile phone using VOOC fast charging technology was the OPPO Find series.
SuperVOOC adds charge pump technology. There are two versions on the market. Its first-generation charging specification is 10V/5A, with a peak of 50W. Find X will be fully charged in 35 minutes. Its second-generation charging peak is 65W, and it can be filled with a 4000mAh battery in 30 minutes. The efficiency is very amazing, and it has become the fastest mobile phone charging technology in mass production.
Qualcomm QC
Because Qualcomm does not produce mobile phones itself, Qualcomm QC charging goals are very clear, which is a fast charging technology for mobile phones using Snapdragon processors on the market.
This is a high-voltage solution, which has very good compatibility. As long as the charging kits produced by different manufacturers support QC fast charging, they can be used interchangeably.
At present, QC has launched 4 versions, with QC1.0 charging peak at 10W and QC2.0-3.0 charging peak at 18W. The upgrade point is to add a smarter voltage range. When QC4.0 reaches the highest output power, it will increase to 28W, and supports the PD protocol, making the compatibility of fast charging further improved.
USB PD
PD is the most comprehensive fast charge protocol. From mobile phones, handheld phones and even laptops, there are not a few devices that use the PD fast charge protocol.
For this protocol, it is enough to know PD3.0. It supports voltages from 5V to 20V and the maximum charging power of up to 100W. Not to mention cell phones, it can even provide fast charging for laptops, tablets, and other devices, which is very practical. Companies like UGREEN have already provided variable PD fast chargers to meet the demand.
The only pity is that the current promotion of the PD standard is not particularly successful, but in addition to notebook support, mobile phones such as Apple iPhone 8 and Samsung Note10 + also support this charging protocol.
Conclusion: The competition for fast charging has not stopped
From five minutes of charging and two hours of talk to 65W, even hundreds of watts of power, we believe that this fast charging technology competition is not over.
Next, various manufacturers will continue to balance the battery capacity and charging power, so that we can feel a faster and safer charging rate.