USB cable with thermal protection
AssigneeLittelfuse, Inc.
InventorsBoris Golubovic, Kunghao Yu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A universal serial bus (USB) cable including a power conductor configured to transmit power between a first device and a second device, a configuration channel (CC) conductor configured to allow the first device and the second device to determine whether a connection has been established via the USB cable, and a first positive temperature coefficient (PTC) element coupled to the CC conductor and configured to mitigate current flowing through the CC conductor if a temperature of the first PTC element rises above a predefine trip temperature.
Claims20
A cable comprising:
- a power conductor configured to transmit electrical power between a first device and a second device;
- a first data conductor configured to transmit data between the first device and the second device;
- and
- a first positive temperature coefficient (PTC) element coupled to the first data conductor and configured to mitigate current flowing through the data conductor if a temperature of the first PTC element rises above a predefined first trip temperature, wherein the opening of the data line indicates a fault condition to a device to which the cable is connected, whereby electrical power flowing through the power conductor is resultantly mitigated.
A system for providing over-temperature protection comprising:
- a first device and a second device connected to one another by the cable;
- wherein the cable comprises:
- a power conductor configured to transmit electrical power between the first device and the second device;
- a first data conductor configured to transmit data between the first device and the second device;
- and
- a first positive temperature coefficient (PTC) element coupled to the first data conductor and configured to mitigate current flowing through the first data conductor if a temperature of the first PTC element rises above a predefined first trip temperature;
- wherein at least one of the first device and the second device is configured to reduce an amount of electrical power transmitted via the power conductor upon mitigation of the current flowing through the first data conductor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.