Developers Get A Close Look At Usb 3.0

The USB Implementers Forum will hold a first conference dedicated to the new interface this month, allowing hardware developers a first detailed look at the specification. Testing tools are available already, but consumer products are not expected to be on store shelves until 2010.

The USB Implementers Forum will hold the first “SuperSpeed USB Developers Conference” on November 17 and 18 in San Jose, the organization announced today. Hardware designers are promised to hear directly from the creators of the USB 3.0 (commonly referred to as “SuperSpeed USB”) specification and about the “advancements offered by the new technology”.

In addition to technical sessions, there will be an “exhibit area will showcase the latest developments and early designs” of USB 3.0 devices.

Last month, Tektronix was first to announced test tools for USB 3.0, which enables developers to verify silicon compliance with the specification and test hardware designs. Tektronix, a manufacturer of test, measurement and monitoring instrumentation, said that it expects first USB 3.0 devices to become available in early 2010 and that first USB 3.0 devices will include flash drives, external hard drives, digital music players, and digital cameras. “These will be followed by video products and, eventually data-acquisition systems that need the high data throughput,” Tektronix said.

USB 3.0 offers ten times the bandwidth of today’s USB 2.0, which is enough to surpass Firewire (IEEE1394). If USB 3.0 follows in the footsteps of USB 1.0, 2.0 and wireless USB, then initial USB 3.0 devices may not take full advantage of the entire bandwidth and we will have to see how fast those devices will be. However, on paper the specification describes a maximum data throughput of 4.8 Gb/s, which translates into a massive bandwidth of 600 MB/s. At least in theory, this would be enough to transfer the data on a completely filled 50 GB Blu-ray disc in about two minutes and twenty seconds.

Major industry players such as Apple seem to have lost interest in Firewire lately. However the IEEE recently approved the IEEE 1394-2008 specification, which increases the interface bandwidth of IEEE1394, also known as Firewire and i.Link, to 3.2 Gb/s.

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