Qualcomm wants you to have five hours' smartphone use with five minutes of charging
Peter Carson, senior director of technical marketing at the Qualcomm Snapdragon summit.
Qualcomm has unveiled the latest embodiment of the firm's charging technology, Quick Charge 4, which is designed to give you up to five hours' mobile device use with only a five-minute charge.
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Revealed at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit in New York on November 17, Everett Roach, senior director of product management at Qualcomm said the latest generation of Qualcomm Quick Charge will be able to provide faster charging times for consumer devices. In high-end devices, the US chip maker expects Quick Charge 4 to be able to provide at least five hours of extended smartphone use through no more than five minutes of charging.
The announcement comes on the heels of Qualcomm's reveal of the latest Snapdragon 835 processor, developed in partnership with Samsung to pack more power in a thinner, 10nm FinFET packet.
Quick Charge 4 will be available at the same time as the latest processor, which is expected to ship in devices in the first half of 2017.
The charging solution includes new integrated circuits for power management, SMB1380 and SMB1381. Qualcomm says these new solutions have low impedance and up to 95 percent peak efficiency, as well as new fast charging features, such as battery differential sensing.
Quick Charge 4 also supports USB Type-C and USB-PD cables, giving both OEMs and consumers a wider choice for products including adapters and docking stations.
"As mobile devices become more capable and feature rich, people tend to use them more," Alex Katouzian, senior vice president, product management at Qualcomm commented. "That's why consumer demand and awareness for fast-charging solutions is now at an all-time high. Quick Charge 4 addresses that need by providing up to 50 percent battery charge in roughly 15 minutes or less, so you don't have to spend all day chained to your charging cable."
Given partner Samsung's recent catastrophe with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 -- and replacements -- catching fire due to what is believed to be battery issues, safety is a top priority for tech companies now working with hardware related to batteries and charging.
Qualcomm has taken into account not just performance but also safety through the third release of INOV (Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage), a power management algorithm which takes into account thermal conditions for charging, and also says protection has been "implemented at multiple levels" to protect consumers through design improvements which "more accurately measure voltage, current, and temperature while protecting the battery, system, cables and connectors."
There are currently over 100 Quick Charge compatible mobile devices and more than 300 accessory products such as car adapters, battery packs, and docking stations which utilize the technology. Qualcomm says that in total, over 600 million mobile devices and accessories support Quick Charge.
According to Roach, there are future plans to use Quick Charge not only to power up our mobile devices but also for drone charging to improve the life of these devices.