USB Type-C/PD controller IC enables 3A current delivery

The USB power delivery technology necessary to go beyond the powering of consumer electronics products and support the elevated current levels required by larger items of electronic equipment has been introduced by FTDI Chip. The FT4233H is an advanced bridge IC with USB Type-C connectivity and USB power delivery (PD) Rev. 3.0 controller capabilities, supporting applications up to 100W.

Through use of the FT4233H, it will be possible for currents of reaching 3A to be provided to connected hardware (such as power tools, lights and household appliances). All the negotiation and power gaging activities are taken care of directly, via the IC’s integrated 32-bit PD Policy Engine and USB Protocol Engine elements (with no USB specific firmware programming being required). This means the system microcontroller does not have to get involved in such functions and system performance is thus not impacted upon.

Supporting USB High-Speed data rates (480Mbps), the USB bridge function of this device is compatible with the quad high-speed USB to multi-purpose bridging offered by the company’s previous generation FT4232H device, including UART, I2C, JTAG, Bit-Bang or SPI via its integrated MPSSE Engine, on up to four independently controllable channels. Support of two Type-C ports is encompassed, with a configurable port that can act as either a power sink or source (or in a dual role capacity) supporting Fast Role Swap, and the other port serving solely as a sink.

The FT4233H USB bridge IC relies on a single 3.3V power source for both VCC and VCCIO. It is supplied in a 76-pin QFN package. An operational temperature range spanning from -40 to +85°C is supported.