240 W eval board targets gains in USB-C power delivery

Eggtronic has unveiled an evaluation board (EVB) that allows engineers to speed the development and significantly reduce the size and cost of 240W power delivery (PD) 3.1 applications while supporting ultra-fast charging through industry-leading efficiency.

The SmartEgg 240W PD 3.1 EVB has a peak efficiency above 95% and operates at over 90% efficiency from light load to full load. A single stage that combines zero voltage switching (ZVS) power factor correction (PFC) and quasi-forward isolated regulation significantly reduces the bill of materials (BOM) and size of key components (including storage capacitors and magnetics) compared to traditional PFC+LLC and PFC+Asymmetric Half-Bridge (AHB) architectures. The result is a platform that delivers light-load energy savings of up to 50%, achieves a power density of 21.9W/in³ (1.34W/cm³) to support extremely compact charger designs, and, most importantly, dramatically reduces BOM cost.

Based on Eggtronic’s innovative SmartEgg AC/DC architecture, the new EVB incorporates proprietary mixed-signal, low-power EPIC (Eggtronic Power Integrated Controller) 2.0 IC controllers and features built-in protection against overpower, overvoltage, overtemperature, short circuits, and brownouts. EPIC, which is based on a 32-bit RISC-V core and a rich set of high-performance digital and analog peripherals, incorporates a flexible internal structure that supports multiple independent control loops of both standard and proprietary power conversion architectures.

Supplied as a dual-port module, the SmartEgg 240W PD 3.1 EVB can be quickly modified for any number of charging ports thanks to the flexibility of the EPIC 2.0 controller, which supports many slave buck converters, each acting as a standalone port. Because the master EPIC IC on the secondary side adjusts all the charging cases by distributing the power needed to each port or allocating the full power to a single port via I²C communication, the power-sharing behavior can be customized.