How to Monitor and Analyze USB Power Delivery with the USB Power Delivery Analyzer

Delivering power over USB has become increasingly more important, as many consumer products and IoT devices are becoming more complex and require more power and better power supply negotiation. In response to this demand, the new USB Type-C standard, along with the also-new USB Power Delivery (PD) spec, was created to meet these growing demands.

Do you know how well your product works in this environment? Our new USB Power Delivery Analyzer gives developers the visibility and transparency to debug their USB PD applications.

	Figure 1: USB Power Delivery Analyzer

We'll show you an example of how to monitor your USB PD system using the USB Power Delivery Analyzer. This example monitors power delivery between a SanDisk USB Type-C Flash Drive and a Google laptop with Type-C receptacles. For more detailed step-by-step instructions, please refer to our knowledge base article Monitoring Flash Drive Power Delivery Using USB Power Delivery Analyzer, Sigrok and PulseView. Of course, you can modify the steps for other devices and setups.

The equipment used in this example:

• TotalPhase USB Power Delivery Analyzer
• Target device: Type-C Flash Drive
• Target host: Google Chrome Pixel with USB Type-C receptacles
• Analysis PC: Ubuntu Linux 64-bit laptop
• Ubuntu software:
  • libftdi1_0.20-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb
    
  •  libzip2_0.10.1-1.2_amd64.deb
    
  • libboost-system1.55.0_1.55.0-1_amd64.deb
    
  • libboost-filesystem1.55.0_1.55.0-1_amd64.deb
    
• USB Power Delivery Analyzer open-source software packages:
  • Software application: Sigrok
    
  • Software application: PulseView

Overview of the setup:

1. Connect the Chrome laptop power supply between the power source and the Chrome laptop Type-C receptacle.
2. Using a cable, connect the USB Power analyzer to the Linux laptop.
3. Connect the USB Power analyzer target USB plug to the Chrome laptop Type-C receptacle, and the USB Power analyzer target USB receptacle to the Flash Drive USB Type-C plug.
   

   Figure 2: System Setup	Figure 3: Close-up of the USB Power Analyzer Setup

4. Launch the Ubuntu Linux system.
5. Download and install the USB Power Delivery Analyzer software packages and the Ubuntu software.

Capture, Monitor and Analyze the USB trace:

1. Open a software terminal and activate the Sigrok application.  You should see the light on the USB power analyzer blink red and green, and then a blue light. The blue color indicates the USB power analyzer is capturing data.
2. Open another terminal and activate the PulseView application. You can now set up this application and monitor the captured data as shown below:

Figure 4:  Real-Time Captured Data

Additional resources that you may find helpful include the following:

• Monitoring Flash Drive Power Delivery Using USB Power Delivery Analyzer, Sigrok and PulseView[RCA9]
• USB Power Delivery Analyzer Quick Start Guide
  
• The Chromium Projects
  

If you have questions about our USB Power Delivery Analyzer or other Total Phase products, feel free to email us at sales@totalphase.com, or if you already own one of our devices and have a technical question, please submit a request for technical support.