You can easily convert Type-A designs to Type-C.

Silicon Labs announced a comprehensive reference design that simplifies the development of USB Type-C lithium-ion battery packs used to charge smartphones, tablets, laptop PCs, wireless headphones, and other portable devices.

This reference design provides everything needed to develop dual-role port (DRP) applications that support USB Type-C power delivery (PD), enabling developers to develop new USB Type-C battery pack products more quickly or easily transition existing USB Type-A battery pack designs to USB Type-C designs.

The newly announced DRP battery pack reference design utilizes the PD stack included in Silicon Labs' Simplicity Studio. Developers can leverage this stack to create high-level functions for USB Type-C message transmission for sending and receiving power.

The flexible board design allows developers to fully control battery applications and switch the direction of power transmission between sink and source modes using buttons included on the board.

The new development board is equipped with Silicon Labs' EFM8 Busy Bee MCU, which handles PD controller functions and enhances design flexibility by coordinating various power supply methods. This reference design supplies 15W (3A@5V) of power and charges at 1.8A.

Since the PD stack utilizes only a small fraction of the MCU's capabilities while leaving many other peripherals, memory, and processing power intact, developers can use it to perform tasks such as controlling regulators and power ICs, direction sensing, switch control, and updating the host's status. When using the EFM8 Busy Bee MCU as a PD controller, developers can monitor the temperature and voltage of the battery pack to prevent overheating or overcharging by utilizing many useful features built into the MCU, including the temperature sensor and analog-to-digital controller (ADC).

“As our society evolves into an increasingly mobile and connected world, people need more convenient charging sources for their smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices,” said Tom Pannell, Senior Director of IoT Products at Silicon Labs. “Bidirectional charging battery packs have now become an essential item, and Silicon Labs’ new turnkey USB Type-C reference design enables developers to incredibly easily develop flexible, cost-effective, and feature-rich DRP charging solutions.”