Xiaomi exec details challenges with 100W Super Charge Turbo technology

Chinese phone maker Xiaomi gave us our first look at its 100W Super Charge Turbo fast charging technology last March, showing how it juiced up a 4,000 mAh battery from flat to 100% in 17 minutes.

We are yet to see a smartphone from Xiaomi that supports this tech, and it appears there's still a lot of waiting to be done. Xiaomi VP Lu Weibing took to Weibo to detail the challenges with the super fast charging.

Weibing says there are primarily five technical difficulties that need to be considered. They are:

• Battery Capacity Loss: Batteries don't like heat, which is the reason why fast charging cells are quicker to lose their capacity over time. And with 100W charging speed, we'll see a 20% bigger loss in battery capacity compared to 30W PD fast charging.
• Technical Implementation: Weibing didn't get into the details about the implementation of 100W Super Charge Turbo, but said it requires an ultra-high voltage charging solution.
• Performance: The company wants to make 100W Super Charge Turbo sustainable and not just implement it with the resources currently available.
• Safety: Xiaomi needs to work on multiple protection methods for different components, including motherboard, battery and charger to make its charging tech safer to use.
• Multiple charging scenarios: While 100W Super Charge Turbo is a wired charging tech, Xiaomi is also considering wireless charging scenarios as well as charger compatibility.

Weibing doesn't reveal when exactly Xiaomi will launch a smartphone with 100W fast charging, but he went on to say that the tech is in the initial stage of mass production and can be expected in the future.

He further adds that 5G smartphones consume more power than their 4G counterparts which require bigger batteries, and asks users whether they would prefer a 5,000 mAh battery with 30W PD charging or a 4,000 mAh cell with 100W charging.

Source (in Chinese)