A New Solution in Wireless Charging

–Small Size Efficient Application SoC Solutions

FR: CDTW   TRANS: Rirob.com

With the continuous application of wireless charging by big brands such as Apple, Xiaomi, and Huawei, the wireless charging market will continue to prosper in 2018. Wireless charger shipments will also continue to show good momentum. (You may also be interested in these posts: How to choose a good quality QI wireless charging module and wireless charging program  and  Selection and recommendation of the wireless charging chip )

Researchers found that current solution with MCU + discrete components is costly and difficult to adapt to the market. Fittings manufacturers expect cost-effective solutions. It is hoped that there will be a scheme based on highly integrated monolithic wireless charging transmitter ICs. The SoC wireless charging chip solution is a monolithic wireless charging transmitter IC solution. This solution is small and highly integrated. It has the potential to become the future main solution of wireless charging.

SoC chip solution is small but big in applications

This form above clearly shows the overall improvement of the SoC solution compared to the MCU solution. The integrated SOC solution integrates full-bridge MOSFET drivers, voltage and current detection, signal demodulation, and buck chips. Now just a highly integrated SoC integration solution, a full-bridge MOSFET, and a few external components can compose a complete wireless charger, instead of MCUs and peripheral components. This can achieve low cost, high reliability, and rapid development. At the same time, the integrated SoC internal MOSFET driver can be well matched to the MOSFET to achieve the best charging efficiency. Integrated SoC built-in Q-value detection and FOD (metal foreign body detection). The reduction of cost and reliability increase effectively accelerate the popularity of wireless charging.

Therefore, although the SoC chip scheme is small in size, it has a great energy and a lot of functions.

SoC Chips solution is big but small in volume.

Thanks to the high degree of integration of SoC solutions, external regulators, op-amps, and MOSFET drivers are no longer needed on the board. One chip solves all functions. The peripheral circuit of the chip is simpler. Peripheral components and BOM are also less. The overall PCB board size naturally becomes smaller. From the figure below, you can visually see a significant contrast between the SoC solution and the MCU solution. The SoC integration scheme is significantly smaller and more sophisticated.

The following picture is a SoC wireless charger solution. It can be seen that there is only one main control chip on this PCB. With two integrated MOS, the circuit board is very simple. The SoC solution integrates a wireless charging driver, an op amp, the main control core, and a built-in temperature protection function. All functions are implemented by one chip. Effectively reduce costs and process overhead.

Let’s take a look at the PBCAof MCU solution. A control chip, driver chip, and the op-amps are all independent. The PCBA is obviously much larger. At the same time, the external components are much more complex than the easily integrated wireless SoC solutions. Currently, the main single-coiler wireless charger solution on the market is one MCU+ discrete op amp and driver solution. Its components are relatively large, the PCB board is large (as shown in the picture below), so its cost is higher. The SCM needs to developed by special personnel. At the same time, more components will also lead to the consistency of the reliability of the product. It is difficult to ensure the reliability of the product. A complex BOM. And a complex production test process. This is not conducive to the rapid development of products, production and marketing.

Summary

Compared with the traditional MCU solution, the SoC wireless charging solution is smaller in size, more convenient in configuration, fewer in external components, and has lower development difficulty and cost. More importantly, because the SoC solution integrates components such as signal processing and drivers, it is much smaller and more powerful. With the increase in shipments, the successful integration of SoC solution on mobile power supplies will likely replace the traditionally high-cost development of slow and multi-component MCU solutions. SoC may become the main wireless charging solution in the market.

(DONE)