Two-port USB-C controller offers Thunderbolt 3 support

14th June 2017

Alice Matthews

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Datasheet

A new USB-C controller has been announced by Cypress Semiconductor, with Power Delivery (PD) optimised for Thunderbolt notebook and desktop PCs, as well as docking stations. The company claims that the EZ-PD CCG5 controller is the industry’s first two-port USB-C controller that supports the Thunderbolt alternate mode with Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 (Alpine Ridge) controllers. EZ-PD CCG5 enhances the plug-and-play USB-C user experience, while providing bill of material (BOM) integration with features such as built-in protection against shorts and electrostatic discharge.

The highly integrated controller increases the reliability of a system by integrating Flash memory that can store two firmware images for fail-safe boot. It offers the EZ-PD family’s trademark programmability to keep up with evolving industry standards.

“The world’s leading PC makers have been closely monitoring the maturity of USB-C controllers to bring all of the universal connectivity and fast charging benefits of the standard to their customers,” said Ajay Srikrishna, Vice President of Cypress’ Wired Connectivity Business Unit. “Our new EZ-PD CCG5 controller is optimised to enable the broad scale proliferation of USB-C in desktop and notebook PCs, as well as docking stations, and has already earned multiple design wins with top tier PC OEMs.”

The one-chip EZ-PD CCG5 solution minimises BOM costs for two USB-C ports by integrating 20V regulators, sideband (SBU) muxes, USB high-speed (HS) muxes, high-voltage power FET gate drivers, VBUS-short protection for configuration channel (CC) and SBU pins, dedicated hardware to protect the system against overvoltage, undervoltage and overcurrent fault conditions, and system-level electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection.

As the USB Type-C standard continues to evolve, compliance and interoperability pose an ongoing challenge, but Cypress’ programmable EZ-PD controllers enable firmware upgradeability to keep up with changes and overcome interoperability issues. The EZ-PD CCG5 controller integrates an ARM Cortex-M0 and 128KB Flash with read-while-write functionality for firmware upgradeability.

The two-port EZ-PD CCG5 controller is now sampling in a 96-BGA (6x6mm) package, and the one-port version is sampling in a 40-QFN (6x6mm) package.