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Continued from the Web Article...
We are here to talk about the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard introduced by the USB-IF, and are here to give you an overview of this technology, market availability and all of its scopes. Let's start with a quick feature overview...
*www.thinkdigit.com/FCKeditor/uploads/usb-30-cables.jpg
Features Overview:
Operating System Supports Development:
Linux: Linux is actually the first OS kernel to provide native support for USB 3.0, following the release of version 2.6.31 on Sept. 10, 2009. While Fedora 12, OpenSUSE 11.2, Mandriva 2010, Ubuntu 9.10 etc. being the leading ones. Though the support is still not yet mature but developers are working to give full-fledged SuperSpeed USB operative ability to the kernel.
Windows: Microsoft is supposed to introduce USB 3.0 support with Windows 7 Service Pack 1, while a rumor says that Windows 8 will have native support for it. However, as they are still in development process, so for now the bundled drivers with the devices that you will buy are the only way.
Apple : Apple, either not much concerned about SuperSpeed adaptation in near future or probably looking for a more sturdy solution, and not recapitulate a buggy release, as they did with USB 2.0.
Hardware Supports Development:
USB Host Controller Development-
Intel has its own xHCI (eXtensible Host Controller Interface) for this specification. Though delayed, they have finally managed to update the Linux Kernel stack for xHCI and provided 'basic' support & drivers with Linux kernel 2.6.31 & still in further development process. Experts speculate that their proprietary LightPeak technology is the key-reason to cause this detention, and that Intel wants to roll-out LightPeak before SuperSpeed USB.
AMD and nVidia, once blamed Intel for not sharing their development detail of OHCI, calling it unfair. With this delay in Controller Development, both of them are not seeing any future of mainstream implementation till later this year or as early as 2011.
Motherboard Development-
With their UPD720200 USB 3.0 host controller was produced in mid-2009 and was the first production level HCI - NEC, providing Asus and Gigabyte with the required components (rumor says, at $15 for each 'experimental' sample). Asus is the 1st company to come out with its P6X58D Premium motherboard in Q3 of 2009 that supports USB 3.0. Gigabyte, on the other hand, although being a late bloomer after Asus, has by now introduced a plethora of boards to the market - mostly for Intel platform. Other hardware manufacturers however are not yet concerned enough to put their sails in the right direction.
USB 3.0 Peripherals :
Primarily data transfer & storage devices are to enjoy the greatest advantage of this new technology. Enterprise class External & Workstation Hard Disk Drives are already emerging in the market and we can expect the SATA siblings (eSATA, eSATA II etc.) to provide the benefit of SuperSpeed USB for personal use soon. While most of the SSDs (Solid State Drives) use PCIe to perform at full speed, they will probably use USB 3.0 soon. This is because a simple, add-on, external, plug & play device is far more appealing than its attached & harder to handle internal counterpart. It also may help BluRay optical media to enter the mainstream market, introducing better capabilities over read/write speeds.
External GPUs are already a possibility, so that a user can buy one such piece of hardware that enables him to play games on all the PCs & Laptops that he owns. Another application may be in High Definition or Super Hi-Vision (4K, 8K or more) video cameras, which may also use the technology for faster media streaming/transfer or real-time editing capabilities.
We may also see the advent of new types of devices that will avail of USB 3.0's features in interesting ways and we encourage you to share your idea here that can use the technology for greater good.
You can read the full story here in the ThinkDigit Feature Stories.
We are here to talk about the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard introduced by the USB-IF, and are here to give you an overview of this technology, market availability and all of its scopes. Let's start with a quick feature overview...
*www.thinkdigit.com/FCKeditor/uploads/usb-30-cables.jpg
Features Overview:
- A new enhanced "SuperSpeed" data mode with 4.8Gbps raw transfer rate (nearly 10 times as fast as Hi-Speed USB 2.0)
- It operates in Full Duplex mode (with 4 extra pairs of connections added for cabling)
- Completely Backward Compatible with USB 2.0 (even with changes in cabling, the plug & receptacles will support this feature)
- Instead of broadcasting the device's packet traffic to all the devices below the connecting host (like USB 2.0) it uses dedicated pipelining to each devices with the host system [similar to the Data Encapsulation of OOPs]
- A single bulk transfer pipe can manage multiple streams of data, in SuperSpeed streaming mode
- An Advanced power Management feature that provides supports for power consumption as per device demand & have low consuming sleep-modes
- The voltage consumption has been downgraded to 4V from 4.4V of USB 2.0, but the current up-limit is now significantly increased by 80% to 900mA, to produce 4.5W at maximum power power utilization
- A longer connector cable length will be supported. Although some speculate that at SuperSpeed mode, the cable length will have to be limited to 3 metres (comparable to eSATA)
- PCIe 2.0 Architecture has been followed, and the signaling, encoding, equalization of data etc. are implemented the same way
Operating System Supports Development:
Linux: Linux is actually the first OS kernel to provide native support for USB 3.0, following the release of version 2.6.31 on Sept. 10, 2009. While Fedora 12, OpenSUSE 11.2, Mandriva 2010, Ubuntu 9.10 etc. being the leading ones. Though the support is still not yet mature but developers are working to give full-fledged SuperSpeed USB operative ability to the kernel.
Windows: Microsoft is supposed to introduce USB 3.0 support with Windows 7 Service Pack 1, while a rumor says that Windows 8 will have native support for it. However, as they are still in development process, so for now the bundled drivers with the devices that you will buy are the only way.
Apple : Apple, either not much concerned about SuperSpeed adaptation in near future or probably looking for a more sturdy solution, and not recapitulate a buggy release, as they did with USB 2.0.
Hardware Supports Development:
USB Host Controller Development-
Intel has its own xHCI (eXtensible Host Controller Interface) for this specification. Though delayed, they have finally managed to update the Linux Kernel stack for xHCI and provided 'basic' support & drivers with Linux kernel 2.6.31 & still in further development process. Experts speculate that their proprietary LightPeak technology is the key-reason to cause this detention, and that Intel wants to roll-out LightPeak before SuperSpeed USB.
AMD and nVidia, once blamed Intel for not sharing their development detail of OHCI, calling it unfair. With this delay in Controller Development, both of them are not seeing any future of mainstream implementation till later this year or as early as 2011.
Motherboard Development-
With their UPD720200 USB 3.0 host controller was produced in mid-2009 and was the first production level HCI - NEC, providing Asus and Gigabyte with the required components (rumor says, at $15 for each 'experimental' sample). Asus is the 1st company to come out with its P6X58D Premium motherboard in Q3 of 2009 that supports USB 3.0. Gigabyte, on the other hand, although being a late bloomer after Asus, has by now introduced a plethora of boards to the market - mostly for Intel platform. Other hardware manufacturers however are not yet concerned enough to put their sails in the right direction.
USB 3.0 Peripherals :
Primarily data transfer & storage devices are to enjoy the greatest advantage of this new technology. Enterprise class External & Workstation Hard Disk Drives are already emerging in the market and we can expect the SATA siblings (eSATA, eSATA II etc.) to provide the benefit of SuperSpeed USB for personal use soon. While most of the SSDs (Solid State Drives) use PCIe to perform at full speed, they will probably use USB 3.0 soon. This is because a simple, add-on, external, plug & play device is far more appealing than its attached & harder to handle internal counterpart. It also may help BluRay optical media to enter the mainstream market, introducing better capabilities over read/write speeds.
External GPUs are already a possibility, so that a user can buy one such piece of hardware that enables him to play games on all the PCs & Laptops that he owns. Another application may be in High Definition or Super Hi-Vision (4K, 8K or more) video cameras, which may also use the technology for faster media streaming/transfer or real-time editing capabilities.
We may also see the advent of new types of devices that will avail of USB 3.0's features in interesting ways and we encourage you to share your idea here that can use the technology for greater good.
You can read the full story here in the ThinkDigit Feature Stories.