Electronics

USB 3.0 moves closer

USB 3.0 moves closer
USB 3.0 demonstrated
USB 3.0 demonstrated
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USB 3.0 demonstrated
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USB 3.0 demonstrated

November 18, 2008 This week's SuperSpeed USB Developers Conference in San Jose, California marks a significant milestone in the march towards the next generation of USB devices. The first public release of the Revision 1.0 Specification USB 3.0 is coinciding with a demonstration by Symwave of the first device to meet this new standard, which at 10 times faster than current USB transfer rates, will save a lot of people a lot of time.

With a staggering 10 billion USB devices shipped to-date, the good news is that the new Superspeed USB technology is backwards compatible with USB 2.0, improving power consumption as well as enabling faster connections.

Symwave’s demonstration of the Quasar USB 3.0 Physical Layer Device (PHY) will showcase 5Gbps speed with low power and exceptional jitter performance. The technology is aimed at applications such as external storage, portable phones and media players, HD Camcorders, and anything else that requires shifting large volumes of data.

We still have to wait until around 2010 before the first USB 3.0 devices begin appearing on shelves, and when they do hit the ground, it's no surprise that a sharp uptake is expected.

“With more than 2.6 Billion USB ports shipped in 2007 alone, the market opportunity for USB 3.0 should eclipse all other wired interconnect technologies combined,” said Brian O’Rourke, senior analyst with In-Stat. “According to our April-2008 report titled Wired USB 2008: SuperSpeed is Coming, the expected compounded annual growth rate for USB 3.0 from 2009-2012 is over 100%, reaching over 500,000,000 devices in 2012. The public release of the Revision 1.0 specification today and the actual silicon availability from Symwave are two catalysts for the rapid market adoption we projected.”

The USB 3.0 promoters group (Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, NEC and NXP Semiconductors) has transitioned the management of USB 3.0 Specification to the USB Implementers Forum. A copy if the specification and an agreement for prospective adopters can be found at usb.org.

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