STUSB4500 Repeated Component Failure

[valentinescott03]

Good Evening,

I am a student doing a capstone project, and I have been having a massive headache with the STUSB4500 PD negotiator. I am using it to pull 15V at 3A from a power brick so I may power a handheld device downstream. We utilized a recommended layout from the datasheet itself so that we may program it ourselves. Attached below.

The good news is, it can sustain loads and power our project... but the bad news is these chips have up and died about as randomly as a carnival prize goldfish, attached are pictures of my layout and schematic for this section of the board. Apologies for any amateurish mistakes on schematic labelling and layouts.

 

 

The trouble is that we can program the chip, and it stays stable for a long while. But out of nowhere, three times now, we will go to plug the board in one day, and the chip will be dead. 

I believe the chip to be dead since it no longer tries to negotiate the preset 15V like we wanted, the 2V7 and 1V2 lines are seemingly dead, and holding reset low or high changes absolutely nothing (I only do this after the chip becomes unresponsive to see if anything wakes it). 

We have appx 3 weeks left, and I have one good chip left, with two more on the way. If there are any bodges or even board updates I can make to this layout, please alert me. 


I thank you all for your time and help!

[valentinescott03]

 

I would like to add, this behavior only seems to occur during plug in.... it has never outright died during use.

I have had a weird problem where the chip will shut off if I were to try and probe the board with a multimeter, but that hasn't happened in weeks, in fact it only happened once.

[Hamady]

Hi @valentinescott03 

 

We have a project where we need to use USB PD so we used the STUSB4500. Scematic from sparkfun devkit

 

I had 5 PCB and 3 of them have a IC fail . Not able to communicate in I2C and unable to negociate power.

And it was after multiple plug / unplug. And even one failed at first use . And unable to have 5V 

Also one big flaw of this chip is that if your device have a battery the IC doesn't have VCC and the I2C is grouded so all of my sensors was unable to work.

 

Its seems that this chip  have a big issue and major flaws 

 

Does the STUSB4531 is safe to use ? And can ST recommand a fix ?

 

Thanks

 

[valentinescott03]

I wouldn't know. I see no recommended schematics on the STUSB4531 datasheet anyways.... I went to check recommended layouts for the STUSB4500 only to find my layout seems to be fine when compared to sparkfun's board and the devboard for the STUSB4500... I really need help with this, my degree kinda depends on it...