“The smartphone performance war has developed to this day, and the hardware competition has expanded from the mobile phone itself to the necessary charger for mobile phones. Whether it is wireless charging or wired charging, it has already entered the era of fast charging, and the definition of “fast” Brands are constantly refreshing new ones. The height of the mobile phone manufacturers such as OPPO, Xiaomi, Huawei, vivo, etc., all continue to make efforts in the fast charging function – from 20 watts to 120 watts, a “fast charging war” from mobile phone manufacturers is staged almost every month. Today, when the increase in battery capacity of mobile phones is almost stagnant, the continuous pursuit of higher charging power has a trend of involution.
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The smartphone performance war has developed to this day, and the hardware competition has expanded from the mobile phone itself to the necessary charger for mobile phones. Whether it is wireless charging or wired charging, it has already entered the era of fast charging, and the definition of “fast” Brands are constantly refreshing new ones. The height of the mobile phone manufacturers such as OPPO, Xiaomi, Huawei, vivo, etc., all continue to make efforts in the fast charging function – from 20 watts to 120 watts, a “fast charging war” from mobile phone manufacturers is staged almost every month. Today, when the increase in battery capacity of mobile phones is almost stagnant, the continuous pursuit of higher charging power has a trend of involution.
“On the whole, we believe that the power requirements of mobile phone charging are not unlimited. For example, 200 watts of wired charging is basically the same on the mobile phone side. There is no need for mobile phone manufacturers and users to pursue higher power.” The world’s leading charging industry leader Wu Miaosong, vice president of the mobile power supply division of Vodafone semiconductor, a semiconductor provider, pointed out at a recent event, “According to the test experiments released by Xiaomi, 200 watts can basically be fully charged within 10 minutes. If you get up in the morning and brush your teeth, you can From 0 to 90% or 100%, this is basically what fast charging wants to achieve.”
Interestingly, in order to use radio spectrum resources in an orderly manner and maintain the order of air waves, the Radio Administration of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the “Interim Regulations on Radio Management of Wireless Charging (Power Transmission) Equipment (Draft for Comment)” in early 2021 to provide wireless charging. Press the pause button for the fast charging competition – it is stipulated that from January 1, 2022, the rated transmission power of all mobile and portable wireless charging equipment sold and used in China shall not exceed 50 watts. From wired fast charging to wireless fast charging, an increasingly fierce “involution” trend of fast charging is ushering in an era of slowing down. How can it develop after fast charging stops being “faster”?
Li Cong (left), Vice President of Vodafone’s Wireless Charging Business Unit, and Wu Miaosong, Vice President of Mobile Power Business Unit (right)
Voda thinking on the change of focus of charging technology research and development under the “topping” of power
As a semiconductor provider focused on battery charging, Vodafone Semiconductors, which occupies the world’s leading share in the wireless charging field, is the key behind-the-scenes “acceleration” force in the fast-charging “comparatively fast” race. Not long ago, Voda launched a single-chip charge pump fast-charging chip that claims to be the highest power in the industry. The innovative dual-cell fast-charging structure breaks the bottleneck of single-cell charging and greatly increases the charging power from 60 watts to 120 watts. , and has the opportunity to further increase to 200 watts. On the wireless charging track, the second-generation wireless fast charging products that have been mass-produced at Voda have reached 67 watts.
“In the future, Voda’s third-generation wireless charging products will adjust the power down to 50 watts, but will continue to improve the transmission efficiency and gradually match the efficiency level of wired charging. We are doing some innovations to simplify the architecture, and hope to make wireless The efficiency, cost and experience of charging will be better. This will allow more machines, equipment and IoT products to use wireless charging.” Li Cong, vice president of Vodafone’s wireless charging business unit, after “topping” the wireless charging power The research and development direction of Voda gives Voda’s technology “roadmap”.
After the power race is suspended, efficiency and user experience are the new direction of wireless fast charging
Different from the national mandatory power limit of wireless fast charging, wired fast charging is still continuing to “play freely”. Last year’s media definition of “30-watt entry, 40-watt standard, and 60-watt flagship” has begun to be unsuitable for the moment. Flagship machines with watts, 120 watts, and even 160 watts are already everywhere. After Voda launched the 100W charge pump fast charging chip NU2205, the official WeChat announced that it will provide mobile phone customers with a fast charging solution of up to 200W. “We have a lot of products that are mutually customized with the most leading domestic customers. When they ask for their needs, we provide them with chip technology. Our product solutions cover high, medium and low power, from the highest flagship mobile phones to mid-range mobile phones. Up to the thousand yuan level.” Wu Miaosong said, “Going further down, we are still discussing with them how the next generation can break through the limitations of the charge pump and make the charging power better. It is not necessarily higher power, For example, our current efficiency is 98%, can it be improved to 99%, or 99.5%?”
Unlike wired charging, which is better optimized in terms of power, efficiency and cost, for the mandatory “limited height” wireless charging market, Li Cong repeatedly emphasized the “use experience” of wireless fast charging in addition to efficiency. In fact, the convenient use of wireless is the key to the rapid growth of wireless charging over the years. “In the third-generation product we developed, a module for long-distance charging has been added. We hope to do some exploration and experiment on this product, and make some corresponding applications with our customers to satisfy their convenience. The demand for experience.” Li Yang said. To improve the user experience, Voda has also done a lot of optimization and innovation. For example, the software algorithm of the receiving chip is fully compatible with all transmitters on the market that meet the WPC certification; The Electronic device is used as a reverse charging terminal for reverse charging of watches and headphones; the patented “one-touch-fire” wireless charging function avoids the trouble of setting a special start button to turn on the wireless charging function for some wireless charging on the market; etc. Wait.
More market tracks are launched, and car wireless charging is the new blue ocean
Wireless charging will continue to explore a better user experience and a wider range of applications
Wireless charging is favored by leading mobile phone brands because of its convenience, and its huge application potential has also emerged in more fields in recent years. “Now we are mainly doing wireless charging for some mobile phones, and we are also rapidly expanding to wearable products such as headphones and watches, as well as the front-end automotive market.” Li Chong pointed out. Not long ago, Voda announced to the industry for the first time that it had successfully launched the first domestic vehicle wireless charging solution.
It is reported that many electric vehicles are now equipped with wireless charging transmitters as standard on the main control platform. As a potential market with huge market, higher technical threshold and more lucrative profits, the vehicle wireless charging market is considered by the industry as another market after mobile phones. a blue ocean. “The needs of automobiles are different from those of consumer electronics products: it takes at least ten years to install a car, and the long-term experience of on-board charging is very important; the requirements for automotive-grade chips are very strict; the on-board electronic products are faced with a sports environment, not Like most of the consumer scenarios, which are static, they have higher requirements for chip performance design; the EMC requirements of automobiles are very high, and they need to have very low EMI; all of these have set a high threshold for chip solution design.” Li Yang said. According to Li Yang, Voda’s in-vehicle wireless charging solution has been applied by many Tier 1 car manufacturers.
Evolution Roadmap of Vodafone’s Wireless Charging and Launching Solutions
Voda’s solution is a wireless charging transmitter designed based on the highest output power requirement of 50 watts required by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. While meeting the automotive AEC-Q100 certification, it can also achieve 80% efficiency of the cutting-edge performance of automotive wireless charging. Different from the charging products that have already reached 90% efficiency at the wireless charging end of consumer electronics, due to the higher performance requirements of automotive electronics, the circuit is more complex, and many protection and current limiting and detection function circuits are used, thereby reducing the efficiency of vehicle wireless charging. At the same time, in order to improve the use experience in the charging scene where the car shakes frequently, multiple coils are often used for wireless charging in the car, and the magnetic field coupling between the multiple coils will further reduce the efficiency.
It is reported that the current general pre-sale on-board wireless charging efficiency is about 70%, while the Voda solution can achieve an efficiency of 80% under the condition that dual mobile phones can be charged at the same time, which mainly depends on its unique charging and transmitter chip technology, including the application of Vodafone’s original SmartBridge architecture, in addition to high efficiency, also has the characteristics of high reliability and high integration, and achieves the goal of integrating all wireless charging functions into one chip. In order to meet the stringent EMC standards of on-board electronics, the SmartBridge architecture fully considers measures to avoid interference effects on on-board electronic equipment, such as actively reducing parasitic parameters, adjusting the speed and time of driving, thereby reducing EMI.
Functional block diagram of Voda on-board wireless charging and transmitting solution
Success can be replicated, from wireless charging to multi-point layout in automotive and industrial fields
As a semiconductor chip design company established in 2014, Voda Semiconductor has achieved a counterattack from a follower to a leader in the field of wireless fast charging in only seven years. It comes out on top, according to the official data “has exceeded 50% of the market share”. The public market information also shows that the companies that use Voda wireless fast charging solutions in the market include top domestic and foreign manufacturers such as Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, Belkin, and many popular models such as Huawei P40 Pro+, Xiaomi 11 Pro and Ultra, OPPO. X3 Pro, etc., are equipped with Voda’s wireless fast charging solution. However, wireless fast charging is a subdivided track after all. The competition in product technology and market requires companies to have stronger strength. How to achieve a broader technology and product layout is already well-planned for the young Voda.
“I think the requirements for mobile phones are actually very high, mainly because the chip consistency must be very good in the case of large shipments, so we have the confidence and ability to achieve wider application expansion.” Wu Miaosong gave the answer to this, ” Our current customers are mainly mobile phones, and we also hope to put these high-performance products in the industry. The automobile has already done it. In the industry, it is like a server. % to 85%, which means that 15% of the energy consumption is consumed. The current power of the charge pump is 100W to 200W, and our efficiency can reach 98%. If this technology is used in servers, it can help improve Efficiency of 10% to 13% is very beneficial to its operation.” According to Wu Miaosong, Voda has built four product lines of wired fast charging, wireless charging, automotive electronics and customized solutions, realizing full-scene charging. Closed-loop strategic layout is the only semiconductor company in China that provides mature solutions for wired and wireless fast charging.
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