Qualcomm Quick Charge 3+ announced for better fast wired charging on mid-range devices

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Qualcomm Quick Charge is a proprietary fast wired charging solution found on hundreds of devices with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SoCs. There are multiple versions of the technology that Qualcomm licenses to OEMs, with the most advanced being Quick Charge 4+. Today, Qualcomm introduced a new version of its Quick Charge technology: Quick Charge 3+.

With Quick Charge 3+, Qualcomm aims to bring its fast wired charging technology to smartphones at a lower price point. This new technology is intended to serve as an upgrade for devices using Quick Charge 2.0 or 3.0 without significantly increasing the price to implement. Qualcomm says the new technology allows for charging a device from 0-50% in 15 minutes, which is 35% faster than the previous generation (presumably Quick Charge 3.0). Qualcomm also says that their new charging technology can keep a device 9°C cooler than before when charging. These numbers are based on reference data from a single IC and an “appropriate board/battery design,” though Qualcomm did not reveal more details on the setup they used to produce this data.

Quick Charge 3+ supports standard USB Type-A to USB Type-C cables as well as accessories that support scalable voltage with 20mV steps from Quick Charge 4, a feature that Qualcomm calls Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage (INOV). Quick Charge 3+ is backward compatible with older Quick Charge versions, so new accessories based on the new standard can still fast charge older devices.

This technology is already supported by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 and Snapdragon 765G SoCs but will also be supported on new Snapdragon mobile platforms that will be introduced later this year. The technology is supported by two new PMICs: SMB1395 and SMB1396. These PMICs allow OEMs to implement QC3+ using the same software implementation without needing to implement an external Over Voltage Protection (OVP) chip or sense resistor. The SMB1396 also supports both wireless and wired input. Xiaomi’s new Mi 10 Lite Zoom, also known as the Xiaomi Mi 10 Youth Edition in China, is the first device to support both Qualcomm Quick Charge 3+ and Quick Charge 4+ simultaneously. We can expect more devices launching later this year to feature Qualcomm’s QC 3+.