Archive for the 'USB 3.0 Products' Category

The Fujitsu, ThinkPad, and Targus USB 3.0 Docking Stations represent the first of future Docking stations.  These units will completely replace the existing docking stations on your desktop within the next 3 years.

USB 3.0 Docking Stations Cost Less

Existing laptop docking stations use PCIExpress Bridges. If you have one, that docking station on your desk works only with your existing laptop.

When you update or upgrade your laptop PC every 2-3 years, you need to replace the docking station and the power brick/supply.

The smart IT department would be smart to start using USB 3.0 Docking Stations or Port Replicators.  This is because your company will not need to purchase a new docking station for at least 5 years, maybe 10. 

The math is simple.

New PCIexpress Docking Station every 3 years at about $130 each over 9 years is $390.

New USB 3.0 Docking Station lasts 10 years, is about $170 now (My guess is the price comes to to $130, so choice will be clear).

If your company is more than 100 people, this adds up quickly.  For the moment, you need to take the long view on this to make your money back, but within a year I think it becomes a no-brainer when USB 3.0 docking stations are everywhere.

Good IT departments will know what to do.

Bad IT departments don’t read this blog.

In fact, I think within 2 years, the older docking stations using PCIExpress will be not be manufactured.

Keep in  mind, the same docking station could be used for a Tablet PC.

If an iPad had a docking station like this, you could use a full monitor, mouse, keyboard.  But I don’t know if these exist today for Tablets, they might in some strange form for some Win7 tablet.  But I’m sure other than these 3, they aren’t USB 3.0 based.

More importantly, the USB 3.0 Docking station could be used with TI OMAP 5, Ivy Bridge, or Samsung Exynos 5 based tablets.

Read these 3 blogs for more.

1) TI OMAP 5 Block Diagram and Picture of Hardware

2) Ivy Bridge

3) Samsung Exynos 5 and Block Diagram 

USB 2.0 is good enough for older monitors and PCs.

Even in USB 2.0 mode, these docking stations can support video across 2 monitors using Adaptive Compression.  So you could replace your existing docking station with a 3.0 Docking Station, and it will be forward compatible.  You will get better performance with 3.0, and you can support fancier monitors, but 2.0 will be sufficient for resolution.

This might seem to argue you don’t need USB 3.0.

That still isn’t true.

You want and need USB 3.0 to connect to your 3 Terabyte Hard Drive sitting under your desk for main storage. 

You need the USB 3.0 connection to the docking station to get to your wired Ethernet  Gigabit per second so you have fast access to your network.

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Flippant Blogs

A reader told me my immediately previous blog was too flippant.

I’m glad people are actually paying attention, enough attention to actually comment on my blog.

So this little addition is add more substance to the previous blog.

And to be less flippant-y.

Fujitsu and Lenovo announced USB 3.0 Docking Stations both using the DisplayLink USB 3.0 to HDMI chip.

Fujitsu USB 3.0 Docking Station

The ThinkPad Lenovo USB 3.0 Docking Station also has the DisplayLink chip in it. It’s a pretty sleek design.

To celebrate the availability of these two terrific USB 3.0 products, I’m posting a demo showing exactly what a docking station like this can do.

USB 3.0 Docking Station–A real product bought off Amazon

The most important part about demonstrating the USB 3.0 Gold Tree with USB 2.0 peripherals, is that you can plug them all in and they “just work”  So your existing web cam, keyboards, mice, speakers, headphones, printers should all work just like we tested here.

We loaded the driver, and changed nothing in our setup and the USB 3.0 docking station worked.

My point: If you buy a USB 3.0 Docking Station it will work with your USB 2.0 stuff AND it might be the last one you buy for 10 years.

Think about buying a Fujitsu USB 3.0 Port Replicator, ThinkPad USB 3.0 Docking Station, or Targus USB 3.0 Docking Station.

As I read these articles, I realized that my lousy PCIexpress based docking station causes a Blue Screen of Death about 1 in 10 times I re-dock. So I’m going to steal a Targus USB 3.0 Docking station from the lab and replace the one on my desk.  I’m actually excited about this.

Here’s the original demo of the Targus docking station from DisplayLink recorded last year.

I described this docking station to my Dad, and he wants one.

I think my Dad doesn’t read my blog, and therefore doesn’t deserve a cool USB 3.0 Docking Station.

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Thank you for reading this blog.

Last week I wrote

“Remember Mother’s Day is May 12th in the U.S. Celebrate and send your mother a link to this blog.”

Today, Vijay (I guy I don’t talk to) walked by my office and said to me

“I sent it (your blog) to my wife’s mom”

without saying anything else before or after.

I have to wonder Vijay likes or dislike’s his wife’s mom.

Vijay’s name has been changed to protect the innocent.

I’m not sure who is innocent however.

I came across this Samsung tablet & smartphone chip with USB 3.0.  You can clearly see it has USB 3.0 as part of the design.

Even more fun, a Samsung says that this will go into a Samsung Galaxy 3 smart phone.  This means phones and tablets.

This makes the Samsung chip the 3rd tablet or smart phone chip that will definitely have USB 3.0.

TI OMAP is the first for tablets, and clearly goes into phones also.

The Ivy Bridge chip for PCs should go into tablets, but doesn’t appear to be made for phones.

And the Samsung Exynos 5 chip which looks like a tablet and phone chip.

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Realizations

I had lunch with my Mom and Dad Sunday. 

I told them about a video I planning to record.

The videos will be recorded by our most excellent marketing team of Darcy Hickey-Pierce and Hannah Watanabe of Conversation Central. (As usual do not click on that link stay here because you may not come back).

Back to the Video: My Mom and Dad both gave advice on how to put the proper market messaging in my video.

At this point, I realized, my Mom has never read my blog or watched my videos.

Which means I’m the only one who reads it.

Great.

Just Great.

Remember Mother’s Day is May 12th in the U.S. 

Celebrate and send your mother a link to this blog.

http://blogs.synopsys.com/tousbornottousb/

Maybe your Mom will read this blog.

My Mom does not.

I posted a blog “Fastest USB 3.0 Flash Drive?…” back in January.  I got reader e-mail.

An kindly reader wrote in:

“Look at the Lexar Triton (USB 3.0 Flash Drive)… (It gets USB 3.0 Performance numbers like) 155MB/s read and 150MB/s write … it is “among the fastest”  http://www.lexar.com/products/lexar-jumpdrive-triton-usb-30-flash-drive”

(Let’s call this reader Mr. Snarkman.)

On the advice of Mr. Snarkman, I bought one on Amazon, and tested this USB 3.0 Thumb Drive below.

Fastest USB Flash Drive in the Universe?

In the video, you will see USB 3.0 Performance of USB 3.0 Flash Drive:  we get 178 MB/s read and 172MB/s write.

Why did we get 20% faster results at Synopsys?

Is Lexar’s marketing under reporting so their customers can be pleasantly surprised?

You know why.

You know why because you’ve watched the video above at least twice and read the blog, “The Fastest USB 3.0 IP In the Universe?…” 

After you Subscribe, go to the explanation below

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I talked to a gentleman waiting to start his shift at Jamba Juice.  He had a 1/2 hour to wait and an iPhone.  He’s a student.

I asked, “Don’t you have something to study or read?”"

He said, “I’ve read all my Facebook updates, I’ve got nothing left to read”

This leads me to conclude:

1. Facebook is great literature.
2. Nothing compares.
3. Why bother reading anything else?
4. Stop reading this.
5. Go read Facebook.

Why our measured performance is better

The reason we get better performance:

1. We used the Synopsys Host IP on HAPS optimized for performance
2. along with MCCI Win 7 drivers optimized for performance.

Interestingly, it also means the Lexar embedded flash, the NAND flash, is capable of faster speeds than what Lexar advertises.

Final Words

This Triton 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive sells for about $80. Well above the price of a USB 2.0 Flash Drive, but it performs at least 5x faster.

If you’ve bought an Ultrabook (all of these have USB 3.0), then you really want to get one of these drives for backing up your data fast.

Most importantly, the Lexar USB 3.0 plug retracts into the metal casing.  The metal case is sturdy.

(I destroyed a cheaper, $20 USB 3.0 Flash drive I bought months ago.  This happens when you throw the drive in your bag, and the USB plug gets torqued. With a plastic casing, it bends and the electrical connections break.)

If you are buying a USB 3.0 Flash drive, look at the Lexar Triton for this reason AND for the performance.

I bought one for myself to replace the cheap plastic one.

And to show customers, here’s an example of a well designed USB 3.0 product (along with some DisplayLink products).

Thank you Mr. Snarkman for the suggestion to test the Lexar Triton.

Everyone else, suggest more products, maybe we can test it.

PC Chipsets with integrated USB 3.0 (from the Innovator/inventor of USB) started shipping at the beginning of April for reviews.

Here’s a table from Anandtech clearly showing there will be 4 USB 3.0 ports!

They’ve added 4 USB 3.0 ports and to the existing 14 USB 2.0 ports.

If you look at your laptop or desktop, you won’t see that many USB 2.0 ports on the outside because some are used internally.  They connect to a 3G modem or a card reader or ExpressCard slot.

ASUS, HP, Samsung, Toshiba, and others have already announced they will have laptops based on the Ivy Bridge chipset, just Google Ivy Bridge PC and you’ll get all the models

It turns out that AMD has been shipping a motherboard also.

I found this article comparing the performance of the Ivy Bridge and AMD integrated chipsets against NEC, VIA, and ASMedia USB 3.0 Host controllers at http://techreport.com/discussions.x/22775.

Here’s part of the Graphs from that Report.

  From http://techreport.com/discussions.x/22775

As expected, the Ivy Bridge Chipset performs faster, it’s the Blue bar.

I’m going to make you go to the actual article at techreport.com to see what the other chips and integrated chips sets are on the graph because I think the website deserve the hits.

Integrated is Faster

Ivy Bridge is faster because it’s fully integrated:

The stand alone chips used in the NEC, VIA, and ASMedia Hosts can NOT achieve faster speeds because they are limited by their PCIe Gen 1 x1 connection to the motherboard.   PCIe Gen 1 x1 can only go up to 2.5 Gbps, and it’s less in a system where many PCIe peripherals are using the PCIe bus.  Ivy Bridge shouldn’t suffer from this because it is fully integrated into Ivy Bridge and probably has at least a PCIe Gen 1 x2, x4, or even x16 to make sure there is plenty of bandwidth to move the USB 3.0 data in and out of the system. 

For detail on factors that reduce or increase USB 3.0 performance read this blog entry.

I’m going to make you go to the actual article at techreport.com to see what the other chips and integrated chips sets are on the graph because I think the website deserve the hits.

Why the performance isn’t even faster (maybe)

Performance Note: the report does NOT tell us what kind of USB 3.0 Drive they used for testing. I can actually guess which Flash Drive they are using based on the max read speeds that I see, but that will be for a later blog entry.

I think the throughput is limited by the speed of the actual USB 3.0 Hard Drive or USB 3.0 Flash drive being used.

1. If it’s a USB 3.0 Hard Drive, it probably uses a bridge chip from USB 3.0 to a SATA 3 Gigabit/second (Gb/s). This means the maximum Read speed would be near 300 MegaBytes per second (MB/s) or about 3 Gb/s. 
2. If it’s a USB 3.0 Flash Drive, it’s speed will be limited by the quality of the Flash inside the drive.  The fastest flash speeds we’ve ever seen is about 300 Mb/s with a $600 SuperTalent flash drive that arranged 2 banks of flash in a RAID configuration.   At $600, this isn’t a really a consumer product.

   Basically, it was fast because it used the fastest Flash memory, lot of it (128GB), and arranged it in two pieces for simultaneous access to both pieces.  I don’t consider this to be a commercial product, and it didn’t sell that many because it cost more than a Hard Drive, but it gives us an idea of what performance is possible with Flash Memory.

USB 3.0 in Tablets

Apparently Ivy Bridge is also targeted at Tablet PCs with Win 8.   This makes Ivy Bridge the second chipset with integrated support along with TI’s OMAP 5 demonstrated at CES 2012 in January.

This confirms Rahman Ismail’s comments (USB-IF CTO) correctly stated USB 3.0 in tablets and smart phones will be appearing in 2012.

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Reader Mail

Thanks for reading this blog.

Comment below or send me an e-mail. Maybe if it’s insightful or insulting, I’ll post it here.  Either one works.

Reader Mail Below

> From: Name Withheld
> Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 5:35 PM
> To: Eric Huang

> Subject: Love your blooper on youtube!

> I just KNEW you were human!

My response:
> Was I a nematode before?

His Response:
> Correct

(Nematode = Worm)

Let me know if you know any spam bots.  I’ll send you his e-mail address…

If you can buy something in the airport, it’s mainstream product, right?   This Duty Free USB 3 Hard Drive sells for 147,000 Yen at Narita Airport.

I like saying “Duty Free USB 3.” It rhymes.

The 147,000 Yen price = 189 dollars.  A little pricey, maybe because every imported electronics device into Japan carries a heavy premium.  It’s about $120 at Amazon or most on-line stores.  At Everything USB review of the Elecom rikiki USB 3.0 Hard Drive puts it in number 2 out of 4 tested units range of performance for a “bus powered” USB 3.0 drive.

USB Factoid

Bus powered USB = Uses power provided by USB port on your PC.  You don’t need an extra cable just for the power adapter.   All Flash drives work this way and some hard drives

Self-powered USB = You need both a USB cable and a power cable.  For example, all USB Printers require both a power cable and a USB cable.

(Yes I know a lot of printers use WiFi and never use USB. )

 

My point is: You can buy this USB 3.0 drive in the airport.

Other Synopsys Blogs – Analog Insights and MIPI OnTheGo

I’m reluctant to recommend other blogs at Synopsys because:

1. They are well written and useful
2. If I refer you to them, they may get more blog hits than me.

Here are 3 (more) blogs to check out.

1. Our recently revived “Analog Insights” blog has a new blog author HĂ©lène ThibiĂ©roz.   She writes practical blog entries including the most recent “10 tips to improve performance using HSPICE.” 
2. Our MIPI Product Marketing Manager Hezi Saar writes about mobile standards in “On The Move”.  Take a look at Hezi Saar’s entry on USB 3.0 SSIC using the the MIPI M-PHY. 
3. I’ve recommended Navraj Nandra’s “The Eyes Have It” before.  His most recent entries relate to 28nm process nodes and beyond.

(After you’ve sampled those blogs, come back)

Back to me.

The Writer of this Blog, Me

Forced by our Social Media Experts to do this “Meet the Blogger” video or Synopsys would suspend my yearly allotment of donuts.

Here’s the video.

To USB or Not To USB Blogger Eric Huang

The makeup and hair for this video shoot was unnecessarily time consuming.

Last Chance of the Fastest USB 3.0 Flash Drive

You guys aren’t even close to guessing. Comment below.  Maybe the winner will get a USB 3.0 Flash Drive.

Answer key next week.

Rate this Blog Entry.

Remember 5 stars is the best rating, 1 star is the worst. (So I’m sure the 1 star rating a few weeks ago was a misunderstanding)

Comment on the blog or e-mail me (you know who you are) on what you like or don’t like.

I get e-mails for most entries now so I appreciate those comments and input.  Thank you for reading.  If you get this far, e-mail me the word “donut” and I’ll buy you a donut next time I see you.

TI has now demonstrated the TI OMAP 5 chip which fully integrates USB 3.0,

It would have been even better for us SuperSpeed USB freaks if TI had actually demonstrated the USB 3.0 portion.

Instead, TI demonstrates stuff like 64fps 1080p video, highly responsive touchscreen scrolling, and points to all the interfaces.

Engadget’s exclusive pictures of the TI OMAP 5 Software Development show micro-B USB 3.0 connector there below the volume controller rocker switch.

Image Source: Engadget

Below the longer USB 3.0 micro-B connecter, you will see the mini HDMI connector called MHL which looks exactly like an old USB 2.0 mini-B connector because it is.  It was stolen by the HDMI group for use in portable designs.

(We didn’t want the mini-B anyways, when the USB-IF developed the micro-B that was clearly better so we are happy to have HDMI take old standards for their nefarious purposes)

As far as I know this the TI OMAP 5 Software Development Kit about first evidence of USB 3.0 in mobile phone, table, ultrabook design yet.

According to Anandtech

“The first devices based on OMAP 5 aren’t expected to ship until early 2013, with some aggressive customers potentially shipping at the very end of this year.” –Source: Anandtech

Well, I hope to see that out the OMAP 5 platform deploy with USB 3.0 in a real product in 2012. Which would back up with Ismail Rahman said about USB 3.0 appearing in mobile phones and tablets in 2012.  I warn you not to click on that last link to my blog entry.  Someone gave it one star.

You can read more at Engadget about the OMAP 5 demo at CES 2012 to read more, or you can watch the embedded video embedded below.  Engadget has an HD version of the same video at that link.

TI OMAP 5 Software Development Platform at CES 2012

A Faster USB 3.0 Flash Drive?

I received an e-mail saying my blog “Fastest USB 3.0 Flash Drive?…” might not be super-duper inaccurate.

I asked for samples for lab testing, I’m waiting for a response.   Next blog entry, I’ll write about this flash drive.  If you can find it, comment below.  (It’s already publically announced).  My thanks to the commenter for pointing this out.

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Rate this Blog Entry. 

Remember 5 stars is the best rating, 1 star is the worst. (So I’m sure the 1 star rating a few weeks ago was a misunderstanding)

Comment on the blog or e-mail me (you know who you are) on what you like or don’t like.

I get e-mails for most entries now so I appreciate those comments and input.  Thank you for reading.  If you get this far, e-mail me the word “donut” and I’ll buy you a donut next time I see you.

Sony built the fastest USB 3.0 Flash Drive (that I know of) to date.

I actually have to measure this myself, but the stated numbers from Sony’s website are

60 MB/s for the 8 GB drive and

120MB/s for the 16/32/64GB drives.

Our fastest USB 3.0 Flash drive in the lab is the Super Talent which runs at about 74 MB/s for the 16 GB version.

This makes the Sony Drive about 60% faster than the Super Talent.

Caveats to this after this table from Sony’s website below:

Caveats – The first and fastest USB 3.0 Flash Drive was actually a SuperTalent drive at 128GB.  It was a raid drive, so it had at least 2 banks of memory to allow for faster, reads from the drive. This wasn’t a mass market drive. It cost $600 for one drive.  The SuperTalent 16GB drive is $20.  The Sony will probably be in the same price range.

So for the moment, I’m guessing that the Sony Micro Vault will be the best performing USB 3.0 Flash Drive for consumers for awhile.  I’m also guessing it uses more expensive flash memory for faster access, it probably also uses a raid type configuration as well for faster performance for the larger capacities of 16GB and more.  I’m just guessing.

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Please.

Pretty Please.

Happy New Year!

Yes, it’s still Happy.

My understanding: The world won’t end in 2012.

Which is great because according to the Ismail Rahman, CTO of the USB-IF says, that Mobile Phones and Tablets will support USB 3.0 in 2012 (PC World USB 3.0 in Smart Phones and Tablets article) 

Smartphones and tablets will also recharge faster through USB 3.0, as the power will flow faster than in USB 2.0, says Rahman

This is because a USB 3.0 Host port will provide up to 900mA of power for charging, which is more than the 500mA supplied by USB 2.0.  So he’s correct.

One thing PC World asks/says/challenges Ismail on:

But transferring data using the current USB 3.0 technology at such high data rates requires more power, which does not fit the profile of mobile devices.

Ismail responds:

“It’s not the failure of USB per se, it’s just that in tablets they are not looking to put the biggest, fastest things inside a tablet,” Ismail said.

He’s correct.  Another awesome response I might give is:

“Actually, USB 3.0 is more power efficient.  It transmits then shuts down.  USB 2.0 has a Host transmitting all the time with every device receiving signals all the time.

Also, at 10x the speed for only about 2x the power (in general) in means that a 10 minute transaction only 1 minute.  Then it turns off.  So it’s off for 9 minutes for USB 3.0 compared to USB 2.0.  So the power consumption is only 20% of USB 2.0.  So the battery lasts longer, about 5x longer just for the transfers…  USB 3.0 is better out of the box.”

There are some conditions, some secrets to the design at the system level to make sure this happen.  Basically, you need to be able to suspend the power to as much of the USB 3.0 elements as possible or shut down the power completely.

So Rahman points out USB 3.0 is coming to Tablets and Smart Phones in 2012, and theoretically he’s got some product knowledge as the CTO of the USB-IF.  I’m wondering if this is the TI OMAP 5 platform as announced by TI or something else?

USB at Home

You can install USB outlets at home for a mere $25.  Each port provides a full 1mA of charging which is good for charging your iPad or Kindle or Android phone, or BlackBerry or maybe your digital camera or cell phone. Got to FastMac.com for more info.   I know I could use them.

Today’s Donut Picture

I have a picture of a Tray of Donuts. I’m keeping it to myself.

 

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Please.

Pretty Please.

So it’s happened, the company the company that invested USB, and drove USB 2.0 and now USB 3.0 to success has certified their own USB 3.0 Host Controllers.  The USB-IF announcement image (and hyperlink) is below.

It looks like the Series 7 chips set goes into standard PCs that you and I will buy, so mostly laptops and desktops.  The C216 series appears to be for servers.

A link to the press release is here: http://www.usb.org/press/USB-IF_PantherPoint_FINAL.pdf.

AMD’s Certified PC Chipset – Where is it?

This follows AMD’s press release from back in April 2011 of a certified chipset.  We haven’t seen either in mass production, but we might guess that both will time their releases to coincide with wide scale Windows support.

Windows 8 with USB 3.0

Combined with the Microsoft Windows 8 announcement and demonstration of USB 3.0, Intel’s announcement means we are on the path to 1 Billions USB 3.0 enabled products in 2 years as consumers look to attach something to these speedy SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports.

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