I still get questions about Light Peak versus USB 3.0 so I’d like to set the record straight.

LightPeak has been demonstrated once, at one event.
USB 3.0 has an Ecosystem of IP, Software, Chip, and Hardware with dozens of products shipping.

I’m sure LightPeak will be successful in the future, but USB 3.0 is taking-off now

And since Analog is hot, here’s the latest on our analog offerings.

http://www.design-reuse.com/news/22134/40-nm-data-converter-ip.html

More USB 3.0 Products

Vantec announced both USB 3.0 Host PCI-e Add-In cards for PCs and ExpressCards for Laptops

Startech announced an ExpressCard

Century has an HDD Stage rack which is suspiciously like the Sharkoon HDD docking station.  These accept standard SATA Hard Disk Drives and let you use USB 3.0.

I’m told you can buy USB 3.0 Hosts and Drives in Taiwan and in Japan pretty easily, but it’s all back-ordered in the U.S.   I’m thinking the suppliers underestimated the demand?

Cyberpower announced that USB 3.0 will be an option on all their Gamer Xtreme PCs.  This (to my knowledge) is the first PC company to announce support for USB 3.0.   I checked out the CyberPower website, and I found 13 models that let me pick USB 3.0 as a feature.   You can see the cheapest PC option here: CyberPower PC with USB 3.0 option. 

The most useful product I would like to buy is the Sharkoon SATA dock.  The will accept standard SATA drives and has a connector for a USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 cable. You can see the blue USB 3.0 receptacle in their marketing doc here: Sharkoon SATA QuickDock with USB 3.0,   The dock will retail for around $75.

GeekWarning: This saves us geeks money by allowing us to buy the cheapest, barebone, unpackaged SATA hard drives, and just plug it into the dock for when we need to do a back up.  We don’t need to speed the extra bucks for the fancy, ruggedized hard drives.  The geeks know what I’m talking about.

Otherwise, you can buy one of the other USB 3.0 storage devices listed below for yourself, your family, your friends… 

Sharkoon sells a matching USB 3.0 Host Card.  Of course, if you bought the CyberPower GamerXtreme and the QuickDock then you’d be all set for USB 3.0.

USB Co-Creator

Also, Conan O’Brian interviewed the Co-Creator of USB, Ajay Bhatt.  You saw an actor in original USB commercial.  You can see both the Interview and the Commercial and Engadget here:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/10/conan-obrien-talks-to-the-co-creator-of-usb-on-the-tonight-show/

Running list of USB 3.0 Products (with Links)

•PCs
–CyberPower Gamer Xtreme

•Motherboards
–ASUSP7P55D-E Premium,P6X58D Premium, P7H57D-V EVO
–Gigabyte – 7 models – GA-P55A-UD6, UD5, UD4P, UD3P, UD3R, UD3

•NEC Host in Add-In Cards/ExpressCards
–ASUS U3S6
–ECS
–Sharkoon

•Drives
–Buffalo HDD
–Dane-Elec HDD/SDD
–Active Media Aviator 312
–Freecom HDD
–SuperTalent Flash Drive
–Sharkoon SATA Dock

Reading through the first published benchmark testing of a USB 3.0 SSD, you can look at it 2 ways.

1) It’s slower than the promised 10 times USB 2.0 or

2) It’s 3 times to 7 times faster than USB 2.0 and almost as fast as direct SATA 3 Gbps connection.

The way it works, the SSD actually has a SATA 3 Gigabit per second (Gbps) connection.  To get to USB 3.0, it uses a SATA to USB 3.0 chip.  (I’d really like to know which one.).  This means the fastest the device can go is 3 Gbps.  This means it can’t ever get  to 4 Gbps.

(Remember, electrical signaling for USB 3.0 is at 5 Gbps, and with 8b10b encoding it drops by to a 4 Gbps maximum theoretical limit).

Looking at the bench mark, you will see USB 3.0 transfers within 10% or less of the SATA transfers.  In SATA mode, it’s actually connected directly to the PC Chipset SATA connector.  So there is some overhead translating from SATA to USB.

So my assessment is, this is a pretty good start for USB 3.0 Devices.

Full link to the report is here

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3004/early_look_at_usb_3_0_x25_m_ssd_performance_versus_usb_2_0_esata_and_more/index.html

Also, the pre-brined Turkey’s are in at Trader Joe’s so clear some space in your fridge.

USB 3.0 is here.  For your convenience, here are links to the 9 motherboards, 2 add-in cars, and 5 storage products that (according to the links) will appear within the next 6 weeks.

These are the 9 models of PC motherboards that you can buy (soon) that will have USB 3.0 on them.  They use the NEC USB 3.0 Host chip.

- ASUS P7P55D-E Premium,P6X58D Premium
- Gigabyte – 7 models – GA-P55A-UD6, UD5, UD4P, UD3P, UD3R, UD3

This PCI-Express Add-in card has been announced also, it’s the ASUS U3S6.  It has 2 Host ports and 2 SATA ports.  The rumored retail price is $30.  This is an incredible price (if it’s real) since the first USB 2.0 Host cards back in 2000 were in the range of $80-100.  I know because I bought one for me and one for my sister.

Five companies have announced storage product lines.   These include hard drives, solid state drives and flash drives.  The HDD drive capacities will be 1TB to 2TB. SDDs will be in the 32GB-128GB or larger range.  The SuperTalent Flash drive will include up to 128GB.

–Buffalo HDD

–Dane-Elec HDD/SDD

–Active Media Aviator 312

–Freecom HDD

–SuperTalent Flash Drive

I call these product lines because the first hard drives all use standard SATA drives, and use a USB 3.0 to SATA bridge chip to provide the USB 3.0 connectivity.  This means that different capacity hard drives can be connected to the same bridge chip to create different USB 3.0 drives.  Buffalo’s HDD will have 1 TB, 1.5TB, and 2TB options.  There is no difference in software, only the hard drive needs to been different.

For Flash Drives, it’s similar, the flash controller includes the USB 3.0 logic, and the vendor can connect a higher quality, more reliable, faster flash memory for a better flash drive, or pick the lowest quality flash memory for selling at the super market checkout.

At Fall 2009 IDF, Synopsys was the first company ever, in the history of the USB to demonstrate a USB 3.0 Device, Host, and Hub all from one company (that’s us).

In this case, our SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Hub is connected to our USB 3.0 Mass Storage Device, a USB 2.0 Flash Drive, and a USB 1.1 Mouse.   The Host we are using is the USB-IF provided one that is part of the USB 3.0 PDK (Peripheral Developer’s Kit).  It’s the NEC version.

The really short (<90 sec) video can be seen here http://www.synopsys.com/dw/ipdir.php?ds=dwc_usb_3

and it should be embedded below also.

The point is that we can demonstrate interoperability of USB 3.0, 2,0, and 1.1 products.  This is essential so that you and your customers can use their 10 year old USB mice and inkjet printers with your new USB 3.0 hard drives and flash drives in the year 2010.

Note:  We are actually using a USB 2.0 Hub chip to provide the 2.0 connection, but we can do this because the USB 3.0 and 2.0 are electrically separate.  We only provide the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Hub portion.

I should also point out that TI had a (really cool) demonstration of their fully integrated USB 3.0 Hub nearby.  We will post a video of that next week.

Sort of.

In a survey of 4,700 kids, then Nintendo Wii and DS are more loved than Oreo’s, MacDonald’s, and Kraft Mac and Cheese.  You can read the article here http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-10371818-235.html.

Smarty Pants conducted the survey which confirms what parents of 6 to 12 year olds already know: Kids will give up food, exercise, sleep, and sunshine to spend time getting an artificial tan from a video display.

How does this relate to USB?

The Wii, PS2, PS3, and XBOX 360 all have USB ports.

The latest Rock Band game Beatles Rock Band includes the ability to sing a 3-part harmony while playing Lead Guitar, Bass Guitar, and Drums (or any combination).  You use your Wiimotes (Wii Wireless Remotes) plugged into the instruments.  (Official video of the game in action can be seen here http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/videos/trailer)

But how do you connect the 3 microphones?  USB

I have 5 USB microphones from PS2 Karaoke games for the PS2 and PC Voice Recognition packages.  They all work on the Wii.  I use the same USB microphones on my PC, my PS2, and my Wii.  They were all designed and built over the past 8 years.  Awesome compatibility.

The Wii has only 2 USB ports, but I need 3 ports for my microphones. I took my USB 2.0 Hub connected to my PS2, and plugged it into the Wii.  Now I can plug 3 USB Microphones in, and sing three part harmonies with adults and elementary school kids (mine).

Backward and Forward compatibility is a foundation of USB success.  Seeing in non-PCs just makes it more cool.

Pick up Beatles Rock Band, and your 6 year old will be singing “She’s got a ticket to ride” during Art class too.

(By the way, check out the Smarty Pants Website http://www.asksmartypants.com/ it is beautifully designed website.)

(Only read this Sidenote if you plan to buy Beatles Rock Band:  I actually am using instruments from Guitar Hero World Tour.  This frees up a USB port because the Rock Band 2 instruments actually use a USB to Wireless Dongle to communicate with the Wireless Guitars and Drums.  In this way they take up USB ports, but do not use the Wiimotes inside the instruments.  You still need a USB 2.0 Hub, to connect 3 microphones.)

I’ve visited a lot of customers and potential customers over the past 10 years talking about USB 2.0 and now USB 3.0.  I have to say, that the longer USB 2.0 is around, the more designers come up with ways to use USB 2.0 in products. 

For example, in China 2 weeks ago I saw a TV with USB Host and Device Ports.  I’m guessing that the Device port was for connecting to a PC so you could upload stuff into the TV like music, pictures, or video.  I’m guessing because it looked like there were pre-loaded images that could be updated.  There weren’t any instructions on this model and the sales person didn’t speak English.  The Host port could be used for pictures and video from a USB flash drive.  This was clear from the information on the front of the TV showing JPEG and DIVX readability.  Of course, I’ve blogged about the fact that there are USB ports on mainstream Samsung and Sony TVs, but I think that having USB ports on standard definition TVs in China is different then having it on premium HD sets in Japan or the U.S..

For USB 3.0,  I expect exceptionally cool stuff.

The most interesting thing is that when I talk to some engineers, these engineers do not see the need for more memory, more speed, more storage.  It’s weird because these engineers (all over the world) adopt these devices at a slower rate than many.  But about 3 years ago, I noticed that everyone had a Blackberry on every flight I took (or so it seemed) and an iPod.  About 1 year ago, it seemed that every 3rd person on a Trans-Pacific flight had an iPhone.  People on domestic flights have a greater variety of phones like LG, Samsung, or other phones, but Blackberries and iPhones still predominate on domestic flights.

My point is simply this:

Companies like Apple (and it isn’t just Apple) continue to innovate and make use of the technology creatively to create new markets, better products using more memory, more features (capacitive touch screens), more speed (iPhone 3GS),  and more speed like USB 3.0.   The companies that really push for market presence and make the most dollars, adopt technology, and put it into great products to make fun stuff people buy.

I had a guy tell me that the iPhone was a “toy”   I now think, “Yes, that is exactly right”  If I don’t need a new phone, why do I buy a new one?  I use my discretionary dollars to buy a cool phone that can make calls, browse the web, or download a gizillion apps.   This is, in fact, the Holy Grail of products.  Sell the Hardware (make money), sell Songs (make money), sell Videos (make money), sell Educational videos (make money),  sell apps (make money).  It’s what Sony did with the PS2, Nintendo with the DS and Wii, and Microsoft with the XBOX 360.

Innovation around new technology drives new uses because creative, smart designers build great products.   I’m confident with the ecosystem of chips, software providers, IP providers, and the USB-IF, USB 3.0 will be driven by both the creative designers, and the fun-loving consumers that need it.

USB 2.0 is now 9 years old.  It’s awesome, it’s still getting new uses.  It’s time for USB 3.0.

Cheerleading is done, back to work.

Watch Glee on Fox.  Also, Fringe, House, and Chuck.  And get a DVR, it’s the 21st century.

Hi Everyone,

I’m really pleased to announce that we are demonstrating our USB 3.0 Host, Hub and Device at IDF in San Francisco this week.

The xHCI Host is running on the Linux operating system with the open source Linux drivers you can find here written by Sarah Sharp.

The USB 3.0 Hub controller we demonstrated was connected to a USB 3.0 Host from the USB-IF.   The Hub was connected to 3 downstream peripherals including a USB 3.0 Mass Storage Device, USB 2.0 Flash Drive (off-the-shelf) and USB 1.1 (or LS) Mouse.  We were able to transfer a large video file and view it from the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 drive, and also transfer a file from the USB 2.0 Flash Drive, and use the USB 1.1 Mouse for the demonstration.

You can read our press release here.

I’ve just read some great news from the USB-IF.

ASUS will demonstrate the X58 motherboard with an on-board USB 3.0 Host controller from NEC Electronics.

Fujitsu will demonstrate their Notebook PC with a built-in USB 3.0 Host controller (again from NEC) connected to a Buffalo SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Solid-State Drive.

You can read the press release on the ASUS and Fujitsu/Buffalo demos here.

I can not express how super cool this is, and how excited I am that these items will be demo’ed next week (Sept 22-24, 2009) at IDF in San Francisco.

I really, really, really hope these go into mass production soon.  I hope to find out when I see them.

If you will recall, NEC announced mass production at 1 MIllion units per month starting in September 2009, so it stands to reason that the ASUS motherboard and the Fujitsu PC might be at least 2 of the products that would actually use the chips.

Since it looks like the USB-IF is ready to start testing and certifying items that earn the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 logo, there is a chance we will see real products in a few months.

My fingers are crossed…

The USB-IF will begin certifying SuperSpeed USB 3.0 products at it’s lab at the Platform Interoperability Lab.  This is significant because it means 2 things:

1) The USB 3.0 Certification Program is ready to go.  You an actually get a logo for your product.

2) All the compliance tests are ready and the interoperability Gold Tree.  The Gold Tree is a set of USB 3.0 (and USB 2.0) Peripherals that you plug into a USB 3.0 Host along with your tested device.  (Or you plug the tree into your Host.)

3) There are enough devices and hosts around to justify starting testing

4) The USB-IF can certify products that will actually work together because everything with a Logo should work together.

In late August, the USB-IF started selling USB Peripheral Development Kits (PDKs)..  This is basically a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Host Controller that you plug into a PC.  This is because you need to have  Host to develop your USB 3.0 Peripheral or Device.  The PDK includes the Compliance tests called the USB 3.0 Command Verifier tool and some drivers for Windows 7 that are for test purposes only (probably not production ready, but good for exercising your peripheral).

These are 2 huge steps to getting USB 3.0 products on the market.  I really, really hope we see something on shelves by the end of the year.  It’s tough since you really need to be in production now to get stuff onto shelves by November/December.  We will see.