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A Quick Look At USB Power Delivery Support of the Apple 87W USB-C Power Adapter

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The Apple 87W USB-C Power Adapter ships with the Apple 15" MacBook Pro (2018) to provide USB Power Delivery 2.0 rapid charging to the Mac. Click here to see how well the 87W adapter delivers USB Power Delivery fast charging to the Mac through the Thunderbolt 3 port while connected using the supplied Apple USB-C Charge Cable (2m).

We can view more details on how the Apple 87W USB-C Power Adapter supports power using the USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs with the Granite River Labs USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester to produce the following test results.

The USB Power Test App first negotiates a power contract for every PDO supported by the 87W adapter, and increases the load gradually to find the threshold where over current protection (OCP) kicks in and voltage and current start to drop for safety reasons.  

Port2 Plot

The USB Power Test App reports out all the PDO's supported by the 87W adapter and their OCP thresholds. OCP thresholds for the 87W adapter are set at about 6-54% above the maximum current levels for the fixed PDO's.

PDOOCP (A)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 2.4A3.39
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 3A3.47
PDO#3 Fixed: 20V 4.35A4.63

The USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs also produces an I-V curve which graphically shows the relationship between voltage and current for each PDO. We can see the voltage immediately shuts off once the current increases beyond the OCP threshold.

IV Curve

The USB Power Test App can also use the Granite River Labs USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester integrated with the GW Instek APS-7100 programmable AC power supply to compare the charger's power output vs power input so that power efficiency can be measured and compared to regulatory limits from United States of Energy (DOE) Level VI or European Union's CoC Tier 2 requirements. We can repeat the power efficiency tests for different PDO's, current load conditions, and different AC input ranges, allowing us to get a complete picture of power efficiency ranges across all different usage scenarios.

Using the USB Power Test App and FLIR thermal imaging tools, we measured the heat emitted by the Apple 87W USB-C Power Adapter as seen in the following temperature readings and traces for the highest 20V, 4.35A PDO, where we observed a max temperature of 66.35 degree Celsius. Note the 87W charger runs cooler than the Insignia 90W Type-C Wall Adapter (click here for review).

Using the USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester from Granite River Labs to run just a subset of the full USB Power Delivery compliance test suite, some compliance failures were observed for the Apple 87W USB-C Power Adapter.

USB-IF High Level Mapping Summary

Sl No

Test Category

Test Group Description

Test Result

1

PHY_PRIMARY_TX

BMC Physical Layer Transmitter

PASS

2

PHY_PRIMARY_RX

BMC Physical Layer Receiver

PASS

3

PHY_PRIMARY_MISC

BMC Physical Layer Miscellaneous

PASS

4

PROT_PRIMARY

Protocol Specific Primary

FAIL

5

POWER_PRIMARY

Power Source/Sink Primary

FAIL

Result Summary

Sl No

Test ID

Test Name

Test Result

1

TDA.2.1.1.1

TDA.2.1.1.1 BMC PHY TX EYE

PASS

2

TDA.2.1.1.2

TDA.2.1.1.2 BMC PHY TX BIT

PASS

3

TDA.2.1.2.2

TDA.2.1.2.2 BMC PHY RX INT REJ

PASS

4

TDA.2.1.2.1

TDA.2.1.2.1 BMC PHY RX BUSIDL

PASS

5

TDA.2.1.3.1

TDA.2.1.3.1 BMC PHY TERM

PASS

7

TDA.2.2.1

TDA.2.2.1 BMC PROT SEQ GETCAPS

PASS

8

TDA.2.2.2.1

TDA.2.2.2.1 BMC PROT SEQ CHKCAP P PC

PASS

9

TDA.2.2.2.2

TDA.2.2.2.2 BMC PROT SEQ CHKCAP NOMARK P PC

PASS

13

TDA.2.2.7

TDA.2.2.7 BMC PROT BIST NOT 5V SRC

PASS

15

TDA.2.2.9

TDA.2.2.9 BMC PROT GSC REC

FAIL

16

TDA.2.3.1.1

TDA.2.3.1.1 POW SRC LOAD P PC

FAIL

17

TDA.2.3.2.1

TDA.2.3.2.1 POW SRC TRANS P PC

PASS

BMC Eye Diagram


Eye Diagram 

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