USB-IF grants Samsung Galaxy S20 lineup with “USB Fast Charger Certification”
In a release posted early Tuesday, the USB Implementers Forum (or USB-IF) have announced that the Samsung Galaxy S20 lineup are the first smartphones to receive “USB Fast Charger Certification” status. What this means is that the Galaxy S20 lineup will support a PPS (Programmable Power Supply) feature.
This feature is part of the USB Power Delivery standard – which is used by many smartphones these days. The PPS feature “allows the smartphone to better manage the thermals while charging, enabling a faster charging experience for consumers”. This means that a smartphone can receive a non-standard voltage charge with a supported adapter.
If a regular USB-PD adapter can switch between 5V, 9V, 15V, and 20V, then a “USB Fast Charger” certified adapter will be able to provide the Galaxy S20 with any voltage in between that the phone requests. This is called a non-standard voltage. In the case of the Galaxy Note10+ and the Galaxy S20 Ultra, that current is 10V @ 4.5A.
Of course, the Galaxy S20 lineup comes bundled with a 25W USB-PD charger, but if you wanted to take advantage of those 45W charging speeds advertised on the Galaxy S20 Ultra, you’ll need to buy the official 45W Samsung charger, or buy a charger that supports USB-PD 3.0 with PPS, and PDO.
Proprietary fast-charging standards like Qualcomm Quick Charge, Oppo’s VOOC Flash Charge, OnePlus’ Warp Charge, and Huawei’s Super Charge all exist because the USB-IF was slow to establish a single quick charging standard above USB-PD. With this new kind of Fast Charge Certification, we hope it means more companies will adopt a more universal standard for fast charging so that smartphone users don’t need to default to a slow charge when using a proprietary charger with an off-brand smartphone.
