Hoes a USBc achieve it’s omnidirectional ability.

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Like no matter if it’s “upside down” it works flawlessly. How do. Is it software managing what pins do what based off a pin check? Or is it some kind of hardware check with like diode protection? Or any other numerous options.

In: Engineering

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The connection is made in the middle, not around the outside.
Connection wires are the same forward as backward ABCBA

Anonymous 0 Comments

If you look at the [USB-C pinout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Receptacles) you will notice that multiple pins have the same function in a rotation symmetrical way.

The ground is all four outer pins. The voltage supply is the 4th pin from each edge. They are all connected together in the device. So regardless of what direction you put in the supply voltage and ground will always be connected together.

The four center pins are symmetrical doublets for the two data lines for the USB 2.0 connection so they work without any configuration regardless of direction.

You then have a two Configuration channel pin in rotational symmetry that is used to determine the direction it is connected. They are used so the device knows how the four symmetrical SuperSpeed differential pair that is used for the high-speed data connection. The devices need to know how they are collected and that is detected with the Configuration channel pins.

So the basic part exists in multiple pins in a symmetrical way so not complex electronics are needed. The non-symerrical part is a high-speed data connection where the direction can be detected.