NuVolta Technologies, a leading provider of fast charging power ICs with world’s highest charging power and highest efficiencies, today announced its second-generation charge pump fast charging IC --- NU2205, which is the first 100W charge pump fast charging IC in the whole industry. NU2205 is the leading fast charging IC for 2S battery with 4:2 charge pump fast charging architecture for ultra-fast charging applications in flagship smartphones and other mobile devices. The innovative 2S battery fast charging architecture enables the charging power from 60W to 120W, and further increases to 200W.  

NuVolta Launched Industrial Highest 100W Charge Pump IC-NU2205-Chargerlab

1. The 2nd Gen Charge Pump Fast Charging IC

In the 5G era, the power consumption of smartphones has increased significantly, and the demand for fast charging has become much stronger. As we all know, the world’s first generation of fast charging IC was launched by TI in 2017, which improved smartphone charging from 10W to 30W, even 40W. However, the battery anxiety keeps increasing with more and more powerful APPs and games on our smartphone. It keeps pushing for higher charging power up to 60W, or even 120W to shorten the charging time and cool the charging temperature. 1S battery charging limitation becomes the bottleneck to push for higher charging power.  NU2205 brings an innovative 2S battery charging architecture, which changes the charging solution fundamentally to meet the increased charging power.

NuVolta Launched Industrial Highest 100W Charge Pump IC-NU2205-Chargerlab
Figure 1. NU2205 EVM

With the launch of NU2205, NuVolta will provide mobile phone customers with a fast-charging solution of up to 200W.

2. Performance Advantages of Charge Pump IC NU2205 

NU2205 utilizes an innovative 2S battery architecture to bring all-round advantages in power levels greater than 60W. The following are the experimental results of efficiency, temperature rise and current. 

· Higher Efficiency 

High efficiency is the most critical parameter in fast charging applications. The NU2205 not only improves the work efficiency through the innovative internal structure, but can adjust the efficiency through the operating frequency. In the 4:2 mode, the highest efficiency can reach 98%. Under the 10V ACDC adapter input, the charging efficiency of 2S battery in the 2:2 mode can reach up to 99.2%. 

NuVolta Launched Industrial Highest 100W Charge Pump IC-NU2205-Chargerlab
Figure 2. NuVolta NU2205 charging efficiency curve

· Multi-mode 

In addition to the 4:2 2S battery charge pump mode, NU2205 also supports 2:2 2S battery direct charging mode. In the 2:2 direct charging mode, the charging efficiency is as high as 99.2%. In high power charging application, it provides the possibility of pulse switching between 4:2 and 2:2 modes to reduce the system’s heat. Due to the innovative design, NU2205 can also support both 2:1 and 1:1 1S battery fast charging modes.

· Temperature Rise Test Chart

At the conditions of 25°C ambient temperature and 16V input, when 2S batteries are charged at 10A and 20A current, the temperature rise is 44.9°C/46.8°C respectively shown as follows. 

NuVolta Launched Industrial Highest 100W Charge Pump IC-NU2205-Chargerlab
（a）10A,  temp of using single NU2205
NuVolta Launched Industrial Highest 100W Charge Pump IC-NU2205-Chargerlab
（b）20A，temp of using two NU2205 

Figure 3. Temperature rise test under charging current 

· One NU2205 Achieves 10A Charging 

As shown below, the electronic load is used to simulate the fast-charging process of the battery. The EVM board of a single NU2205 can output 10A current stably.

NuVolta Launched Industrial Highest 100W Charge Pump IC-NU2205-Chargerlab

· Two NU2205 in Parallel to Achieve 20A Charging 

As shown in the figure below, an electronic load is used to simulate the fast charging process of a battery. Two EVM boards with NU2205 can output a stable current of 20A. 

NuVolta Launched Industrial Highest 100W Charge Pump IC-NU2205-Chargerlab

3. Advantages of 2S Battery Architecture 

NU2205 adopts NuVolta’s 2S battery 4:2 charge pump fast charging architecture, and it supports charging power up to 100W with single chip. What are the advantages of 2S battery charging?

3-1. The Breakthrough of 2S Battery Architecture 

Along with OPPO launched the first generation of low-voltage high-current fast charging (VOOC) in 2014, the fast charging solution has dramatically changed the way of battery charging in smartphones. In 2017, the 1S battery charge pump solution was commercially available by TI, and the charging power exceeded 40W, 50W and 60W in 1S battery charging. The current charges into the 1S battery have also increased from the initial 5A to 12A. That means when the battery’s internal resistance is only 5mΩ, the power loss of battery exceeds 0.7W. The higher current brings more heat that induces huge challenges to the design of the battery protection board and the internal resistance of the battery cell. 

Taking battery protection MOSFET as an example. In order to meet the application of fast charging and high current, the resistance of MOSFET has been reduced from 5mΩ to 1.1mΩ. It means the battery protection MOSFET performance has approached the device limit. Therefore, the 1S battery fast charging encounters the charging power limitation.

NuVolta Launched Industrial Highest 100W Charge Pump IC-NU2205-Chargerlab

The 2S battery fast charging solution doubles the battery voltage at the charging output terminal, reduces the current into the battery by half at the same charging power, and reduces the battery’s heat to 25%. In the same 60W charging power level, the current to the battery drops to 6A. When the battery pack’s internal resistance keeps 5mΩ, the power loss of the battery is significantly reduced to 180mW; When the current to battery keep 12A, 2S battery fast charging can break through the charging power limit to 120W, or even 200W. 

The second-generation charge pump fast charge IC - NU2205 adopts 4:2 charge pump architecture. This architecture and integrated FET have been optimized to achieve a 50% duty cycle. The architecture lowers down the current of USB cable to half of charging current to battery, reducing the loss of the charging cable and limiting the temperature rise in the application. The two-phase architecture lowers down the input capacitance requirements while improving the output voltage ripple. 

NuVolta Launched Industrial Highest 100W Charge Pump IC-NU2205-Chargerlab
Figure 4. Advantages of 2S battery architecture 

As shown in Figure 4, the input 20V voltage is reduced by 50% at battery packs side and the charging current of battery is increased to 12A current, which is twice of the input current. In light of the current double structure, the input current is limited to 6A that can realize high power transmission while no need to upgrade the charging cable, demonstrating advantages of the 2S battery architecture. 

Furthermore, NU2205 supports charging parallelly. When two NU2205 ICs are used in parallel, the charge pump ICs will output 120W power. When three NU2205 ICs are in parallel, the charging power exceeds 200W.

4. Completed Safety Protections

In high-power charging applications, efficiency and heat are the most important considerations. However, in a charging system, besides efficiency, the most important consideration is charging safety. NU2205 integrates up to 34 levels of safety protections, such as protections of input and output voltage and current, battery voltage and current, and temperature, etc. That protects the system and prevents abnormal conditions damaging the battery and system. We care more about charging safety than you. 

5. Offers both Wireless Charging and Wired Fast Charging Solutions

NuVolta’s competitive advantage is also reflected in the existing leading wireless fast charging technology. Together with the world-leading wireless fast charging solution, the newly launched 100W fast charging solution enables NuVolta to be a unique high-performance power semiconductor company with competed wireless and wired fast charging solution.

Summary

NuVolta launched the second-generation charge pump fast charging IC, which aims to empower smartphone customers to solve the problems of high-power consumption and heating during fast charging, and achieve the best charging efficiency in the industry. With excellent product quality, NuVolta has cooperated with many brand customers in fast charging projects. With the improvement of charging power and efficiency, NuVolta fast charging series products will help customers and greatly improve the charging experience of users. 

About NuVolta Technologies

Founded in 2014 in Silicon Valley, NuVolta Technologies is the industry’s leading supplier of ICs and solutions. We are committed to providing high-performance power management ICs and power system solutions for consumer electronics, automotive, industrial and healthcare. Our products cover wireless charging receiving and transmitting ICs, fast charging ICs, display power ICs and protection ICs. NuVolta has become a core supplier of international mainstream smartphone brands and few mobile accessory manufacturers. Meanwhile, our one-stop power management solution has become primary choice of internationally renowned consumer electronics brands.