...This allows some very interesting possibilities, the most intriguing is getting rid of charging ports entirely, and having every USB port, with PD support of course, capable of powering the laptop. Or powering another laptop, monitor, or anything else. Or none of the above, and not catch fire while doing any of it, quite a trick when you are talking about pushing 100W over a thin USB cable.
Much of this is possible because the PD spec requires and detects PD cables, both their presence and whether they are normal or micro-USB connectors. Why? PD specs 5A over the wire safely for full sized PD cables and connectors, 3A for micro-USB PD cables. If you are math capable, you might have noticed that to get 100W with 5A, you need to have 20V.
That would indeed be the case, PD specifies, but does not require absolutely sticking to, six profiles for power. The intent is to deliver between 10W and 100W in steps that roughly double the one before. These six profiles are cleverly named Profile 0-5, with 0 being reserved.
Profile 1 is 2A@5V or 10W, roughly what Gigabyte delivers now on their 3X power boards. From there, Profile 2 is 5V@2A or
[email protected], Profile 3 is 5V@2A or 12V@3A, Profile 4 adds 20V@3A to it's predecessor, and Profile 5 bumps the 12V and 20V to the full 5A.
