SuperSpeed USB 3.1
Background
In September 2007, the USB 3.0 Promoter Group (Intel, NXP, HP, Texas Instruments,
Microsoft, and NEC) was formed to create the third major incarnation of the
ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus, terming this new iteration “SuperSpeed
USB.” USB, first introduced in the mid-1990s with speeds topping
out at 12Mb/s, and updated in 2000 to achieve a 480Mb/s rate, will appear on
the consumer scene in 2009 with an absolutely blazing 5Gb/s signaling rate,
representing more than a 10x speed increase over today’s connection.
SuperSpeed
USB 3.0 draws upon the general user-perspective architecture of USB 2.0,
and in fact co-exists with USB 2.0 on the cable and within systems, devices,
hubs, and software, but under the hood, engineers find substantially different
physical and protocol layers.
The new SuperSpeed USB technology is largely driven by the proliferation of
digital media and resulting super-large file sizes, and is expected to target
fast “sync-and-go” transfer
applications in the PC, consumer, and mobile device markets. Devices
and applications expected to leverage the fast data transfers speed provided
by SuperSpeed USB include external hard drives, flash memory products, portable
media players, handheld gaming devices, and mobile devices with embedded flash
memory.
In July 2013 the USB-IF introduces an improved version of the SuperSpeed technology,
part of the USB 3.1 specification. Don't be fooled by the apparently minor
step from 3.0 to 3.1. The new specification introduces a whole new physical
layer and link layer optimizations, enabling 20% efficiency increase at the
same data rate, and at the same time doubling the data rate to 10 Gbps, for
a total increase of 2.5x. The
specification extends the existing SuperSpeed mechanical, electrical, protocol
and hub definition while maintaining compatibility with existing USB 3.0 software
stacks and device class protocols as well as with existing 5Gbps hubs and devices
and USB 2.0 products.
New challenges for developers
Such a huge step in the technology means plenty of new challenges for developers. The
high-performance protocol, the increased speed, the aggressive power management,
etc., are all aspects that will need to be mastered.
To enable adopters of this cutting-edge technology, Ellisys creates the most
technologically advanced protocol test systems including protocol analysis,
traffic generator and compliance verification. The Ellisys USB Explorer 350
is latest and greatest protocol test system for the enhanced SuperSpeed USB
3.1 at 10 Gbps. Learn more »
Links
Here are a few links to pages containing a whole information range about USB.
USB 3.0 homepage
USB 3.0 specification
USB 3.0 DevCon presentations
Intel USB 3.0 technology
homepage
Intel USB 3.0 Extensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) specification
Ellisys USB Explorer 280 SuperSpeed
3.0 5Gbps Analyzer and Generator
Ellisys USB Explorer 350 SuperSpeed
3.1 10Gbps Analyzer and Generator
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