Cool.
I wish Anker would share more with us. I wish Anker would ask us more questions, sound us out if there are choices. Pity they don’t. As that means I’m left guessing.
So I’m studying electronics (just for hobby) and looking exactly how these DC-DC converters work. It does make sense for Anker to make these larger higher Wattage to be IQ3 rather than PD as there is an electronics within the PD standard, a killer weakness particularly for multiple PD ports.
The good news is there is no inherent cost penalty for higher Wattage. It costs the same to make 100W as 60W. The bad news is there is always a degree of inefficiency (about 96% efficient) so 100W makes 4W of heat, vs 60W makes 3W of heat, so 1W more heat. That can be addressed at low cost by larger heatsinks, and by a more metallic casing to conduct heat wider. So let’s say there’s $5 more in heat dissipation for 100W vs 60W.
i.e. An 100W wall charger (not portable charger) has no legitimate need to cost more than $5 more than a 60W wall charger. If it priced more than that, it’s because the consumers are allowing it by paying more than $5 more for 100W.
The bad news in Power Delivery is you must support all the modes. That causes an issue in portable chargers with PD. The cells are wired in series or parallel to get to a given Voltage. The input voltage to the electronics becomes a decision and physically fixed. The diodes selected in the electronics have an optimised Voltage they run at, so you must decide the optimal voltage. If you make anything 60W or higher it must be 20V. If you tune it for 20V, you may be able to get 15V efficient, but the 9V and 5V become less efficient.
So to make this dual A dual C charger, if you were purely PD then you’d have to allow each port to have potentially a different voltage, one say 5V, another say 9V, another 15V, another 20V. That means the electronics have most of the Wattage running at less efficient voltages - more heat. More heat = more cost in heat dissipation. Or, you must run at less total Wattage, so 100W max becomes say 60W max if all ports used and all allowed to be different Voltages.
However if you make these IQ2 and IQ3 ports, you can relax from PD and NOT support all voltages, or NOT support certain combinations of Voltages.
For example, under PD, everything 60W-100W must be 20V. If you were to split and use both PD ports, so each is say 45W. 45W is allowed to be under PD either 3A 15V or 2.25A 20V. But it’s inefficient (heat) to allow one port to be 15V and the other 20V, so with IQ3 (approximate PD) if both IQ3 ports are used, and each wants 45W, they must both be the same voltage (say both must be 20V).
There is a risk that some devices don’t like it.
Power Delivery is not designed to be electronic efficient for portable chargers with multiple USB-C ports is what I’m saying, we the consumers must either pay $$$ extra to compensate, or allow some tolerance, flexibility that certain combinations of devices in a multi-port portable charger will not function.
So that is the debate, I’d like Anker to have with this community, there are choices to be made between cost and interoperability.