Adoption rate of USB Type-C has been slower than expected

USB Type-C has been hailed as a "true" universal port because of its wide bandwidth and small physical size fit for both smartphones and notebooks alike. The fact that it shares the same connector as Thunderbolt 3 allows the standard to support even external graphics cards and displays to potentially replace a number of other dedicated ports.

Sources close to DigiTimes, however, claim that adoption rates for the standard have been slow due to two main reasons: USB Type-C requires a higher electric current than most other connector types and costs more to implement as well. The higher current demand poses problems regarding heat generation and interference with adjacent circuitry. For example, users are allowed to both charge a smartphone and run an external display simultaneously, which puts strain on the single port. The thin connector itself also proves to be less rigid than many of its larger and thicker alternatives.

The higher cost of USB Type-C can be attributed to products that wish to implement Gen. 2 speeds or Thunderbolt 3. Such features may require additional controllers and chipsets, which would in turn increase the price of the final product or the manufacturer may simply forego the port altogether.

These disadvantages mean that manufacturers must be very careful with which product lines should sport the reversible USB port. Currently, most higher-end Ultrabooks, tablets, and gaming notebooks have USB Type-C. Nonetheless, the standard should become cheaper over time and should make a bigger splash in mainstream devices come 2017.

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