I’m constantly asked: "Will Thunderbolt replace USB 3.0?"

Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 will co-exist & live long, fruitful lives

As reported previously, Apple filed and recieved a patent for a new iPhone or iPad connector which looks  like a Thunderbolt connection. You can see in the picture that it includes connections for USB 3.0 and dual port Displayport.

Apple received the patent in April 2011.  Since it takes at least 3 years to get a patent, we can guess that Apple has known since at least 2008 (probably 2007), it would support USB 3.0.

Apple may or may not have had knowledge of Thunderbolt in 2007.  I can see a world (in 2007) where Apple knew it would want it’s iPad tablet to drive a bigger monitor through DisplayPort.  That could be the original reason for dual DisplayPort and not Thunderbolt.  I can only guess.

Where am I going with this?

1. Apple uses the PCs chips found in most PCs
2. Most PCs will move to Ivy Bridge
3. Ivy Bridge will be found in most PCs
4. Future Apple PCs will likely use Ivy Bridge
5. Ivy Bridge has USB 3.0
6. It’s highly likely Apple will support USB 3.0
7. Apple patents indicate they’ve planned all along to support USB 3.0

So if you are still with me, Apple will definitely support USB 3.0

Back to the question

Will Thunderbolt overtake USB 3.0?

Pros:

1. Faster than USB 3.0 today
2. Proven
3. On every Apple mobile PC

Cons:

1. Closed Standard restricts the ability to integrate.
2. Only one company provides discrete chips

The one way Thunderbolt could overtake USB 3.0 is if Thunderbolt opens up as a standard.

USB 3.0 will have more than 100 design starts for SoC integration

The USB-IF has something like 4000 members. By the end of this year, there will be about 200 different USB 3.0 Design starts.  Thats lots of people innovating products around USB.

Thunderbolt is closed.  It will stay closed.  This video explains why:

So the Innovator that designed Thunderbolt makes money from customers like Apple, Acer, and Lenovo that ship Thunderbolt.  Big piles of money.  People that need/want Thunderbolt pay for Thunderbolt.

The innovator promotes USB 3.0 for mainstream ease of use.  Consumers are happy.

Thunderbolt closed.  USB open.

Everyone is happy.

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I dare you.

Apparently we’ve sold a bunch of DDR.

There was cake.

I ate 2 pieces.

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.

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…

Here’s the longer, more detailed version of our USB 3.0 SSIC demonstration.   It’s 7 minutes.  It’s going to be the best 7 minutes of your day.

SuperSpeed Interchip Proof of Concept–Long Version

If you want to watch the shorter version (or more of a description) go back to last week’s blog here for a written description of the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Interchip (SSIC) demo.

I meant to post it Thursday last week, but apparently I lied.

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Last week I wrote “…someone pointed out to me that no one is going to ever watch these videos twice.”

I received this comment in response, “Eric you are right, I’m never going to watch theses videos twice”

Thanks.

Thanks very, very much.

HP’s all in one TouchSmart 520 PC has 2 USB 3.0 Ports included in a beautiful, single unit touchscreen PC.

It has a BluRay burner, which is pretty cool too.  So HP beats Apple in features here. Read the PCWorld Review article here.

ADATA now waterproofed USB drives, so you can carry these around when you go scuba diving or stir your coffee with them.

You should note that the top speeds of these USB 3.0 drivers is 100 MB per second.

Top USB 2.0 speeds are 35 MB per second. Top USB 3.0 speeds are 350MB per second.

The ADATA speed is still 3x the speed of USB 2.0 which is definitely faster.  The speed limiting factor is actually the flash memory. It uses memory more expensive than memory found in today’s USB 2.0 drives, but still slower than needed to get the fastest USB 3.0 speeds.  Just keep this in mind.

The Kindle & USB – Viewer Mail

Ned writes in “"Interesting blog about the Kindle Fire and iPad.  I can’t, however, figure out what it has to do with USB…”

(Ned isn’t his real name.)

I’m glad you asked this question Ned.

This Tablet, the Kindle has only one wired interface, it’s USB 2.0.  It’s used for both charging and for content transfer.

For example, If you keep your music in the “Amazon Cloud” you can download via WiFi.

But, most people (I think) already have their entire MP3 library on a USB hard drive or a PC or both somewhere.

So it’s a lot faster to plug your Kindle Fire into a laptop or PC, and transfer all your Britney Spears and Rihanna music to your device.

You could upload your music to the Amazon Cloud, or even the Apple iCloud.  You’d then have access anywhere. And you could stream to your device.

Of course you need Wi-Fi or Broadband access to download these items.  So you still want to download with USB 2.0.

Why do you care?

Well, you’ll still need to charge your device now and in 2014.

And you’ll have even more content.

And you might not be willing to pay for a huge “cloud” to store all your data.

Are you going to trust all your kid’s photos to a single, on-line storage facility at Amazon or Apple?

Will you pay $500 a year for the storage, when a USB 3.0 drive costs only $100?

No.

You buy 2 USB 3.0 hard drives. You store your stuff there, and keep a small amount on the cloud.

So you will have USB 2.0 now and USB 3.0 soon on all your tablets and smart phones so you can keep carrying around a gazillion videos you recorded, pictures you took, and movies/TV shows you want to watch.

Kindle Fire TechRepublic Teardown

Here’s a picture from the TechRepublic teardown of the Kindle Fire.

It’s interesting to me because the RAM chip is mounted directly on top of the TI OMAP 4430 chip underneath.  As a digital guy I don’t know why someone does this, except to improve performance, and maybe lower power required.  Someone send me an e-mail to explain why or post a comment below.

You will see the TI OMAP 4430 actually appears to have 2 USB controllers.

One is an HSOTG port on the top right.

The other is in the bottom left, and looks like a USB 2.0 Host controller.

The new OMAP 5 platform as has 1 USB DRD port and 3 USB 3.0 ports. Block diagram and description can be seen here in my earlier blog entry on OMAP 5 and Tablets.

So TI’s already moving the next platform onto USB 3.0, so in 2 years we would see TI OMAP tablets with USB 3.0.

Donut

Post your questions in the comments below (or send me e-mails)

And here’s today’s Donut.

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I’m still trying to figure out how you subscribe your enemies automatically. I think that might be considered bad, but they are your enemies, so why do you care?

In the USB 3.0 community at IDF 2010, lots of USB 3.0 demonstrations

TI demonstrated their USB 3.0 chips.

 TI USB 3.0

TI USB 3.0 to SATA chip TUSB9260 connected to an SSD.

Same chip connected to a BluRay Drive

TI SuperSpeed USB Re-Driver.  This enables longer USB cables without a Hub.

And on the right,  you can see the TI SuperSpeed Hub.  Several USB 3.0, 2.0, and 1.1 devices connect to the hub. (I forgot to take a picture of the entire system)

For a short write-up of IDF Day 1 Keynote and the USB Community, visit TI’s USB Blog

At IDF, DisplayLink’s demonstrated Video streaming using USB 3.0  as reported by Laptop Magazine in the Video below.

Our booth neighbor in the USB 3.0 community, Gigabyte gave an early look at their Motherboards.  They all seem to have USB 3.0.  FutureLooks posted a terrific video on YouTube.  You can see the Synopsys booth and my hand in the background.  

USB 3.0 Design Challenges and USB IP

I’ve heard some weird conspiracy theories on why USB 3.0 isn’t taking off.  I simply don’t believe any of them.  USB 3.0 is hard.  Everyone working on USB 3.0 works long hours, and managers fail to understand the true challenges of USB 3.0.

Manager: It’s just like USB 2.0, it’s just faster right?

Engineer: No, it has to support all USB 3.0, 2.0, and 1.1 speeds

 

Manager: It’s just like PCIexpress right?

Engineer: No, it has to support all USB 3.0, 2.0, and 1.1 speeds.  The 2.0 PHY is different. The Protocol is completely different.  The PHY uses spread spectrum clocking. 

Manager: Can’t you reuse the USB 2.0 stuff we have?

Engineer: No, it’s a different protocol. We can’t get the USB 3.0 speeds if we reuse the 2.0 stuff.

 

Manager: Why does this take so long?

Engineer: It’s hard.

So, the host chip makers face unexpected challenges in their deployment like working transceivers.  I hope they all succeed because the industry needs every chip maker to get certified and get products out there.

For me, it points to the fact that USB 3.0 isn’t as easy as anyone thinks.  We have the IP at Synopsys.  The PHYs. The Digital Cores. The VIP. The System Level Models.  It all works.  The PHY and the Device have received certification in multiple designs now.  Choose your IP wisely.

 120 Certified SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Produc
ts

Despite the difficulties Host providers have encountered, the EETimes reports that the USB-IF has certified 120 USB 3.0 products.  About 9-10 chips support these 120 products, I expect more in Q4 and many, many more in 2011.

The Synopsys Recycling Center

My office, when I returned from IDF.

So I’m waiting for the iPod Touch 4th generation.  Lots of reports now on the next generation one,  here’s one more article at PC World

New BlackBerry Curve (with faster USB 2.0)

In the meantime, my company (Synopsys) has issued me the new BlackBerry Curve which comes pre-installed with an MMC (Multi-Media Card) of 1GB.  In replaced it with 8GB MMC card, formatted it in the new BlackBerry, and I have a full 8 GB worth of space for holding files (data, music, video).  I can now use the BlackBerry as a portable USB Flash drive, music player, video player, camera, and video camera.  8 GB enough space to carry a backup of critical files and some music.  For the new BlackBerry, I also noticed that the USB Transfer time is much, much faster than my old BlackBerry.  Closer to proper USB 2.0 speeds.  This speaks to the variability in systems of USB 2.0 implementations.  Cheap IP, cheap controllers or PHYs can lead to a real drag on USB performance.  For example, If the USB eye for the PHY is bad, the speed can drop dramatically.  

BlackBerry with micro-B

Many cameras still use the original mini-B receptacles, and I have a dozen of these cables.   This BlackBerry uses the “new” micro-B receptacle, so I had to buy a some new cables on Amazon for $2 which actually includes shipping.  The micro-B is flatter than the mini-B, and was designed to work better with smaller form-factor mobile phones.  This is of course the USB 2.0 Micro-B

On the left here you can see the USB 2.0 connectors.

Standard Type A on your PC and Laptops.

Type B on your Printer or Scanner.

Mini-B on most cameras.

Micro-B on the new BlackBerrys and some mobile phones

This is the USB 3.0 Micro-B connector below.

The right side is the micro-B, and the left side of are the new USB 3.0 signals.

The Need for USB 3.0

I heard 2 stories in the last week:

1) The VP of Marketing at MCCI filled up his HD Camcorder with 32 GB of video from recordings of his son’s activities.  He had never transferred data off the Camcorder in the 9 months he had the recorder.  It took him over 1 hour (he stopped keeping track) to get the video off his Camcorder using USB 2.0.   USB 3.0 could do this in minutes.

2) One of our Director’s of Engineering filled up his 2 GB SD card with video.  He couldn’t couldn’t complete the transfer of the file to his laptop before his camera just stopped working.  I’m not sure why, but it still took a long, long time.  Even 2 GB takes several minutes.  He came to me with the epiphany, “I really need USB 3.0.”

I said, “Yeah, I know.”

Samsung demonstrated a USB only monitor at the Society for Information Display conference last week in Oregon.  The screen uses a forked USB 2.0 connector to provide the power necessary.  This is only possible because this is an edge-lit LED display.

The pictures and the full article are from TechOn here and in the link below

Also, at Everything USB, the author speculates that with USB 3.0 you could maybe use a single USB 3.0 port. I’ve run the math below and my commentary is at the end of this blog entry.

I should point out that some USB 2.0 devices pull more than the legal 500mA from a Host, and when they do, they violate the specification.

The interesting thing that TechOn reports that the display requires 6.3 W.  You can see from the calculations above, that 2 USB 2.0 ports will only generate about 5 W.  This means that either the actual average power requirement is much lower than 5W, or there is some power savings scheme on the screen when running on USB.   My hope is that displays would run at even lower power and could run off off a single USB 3.0 port.

Rate this blog below.  Because you love it (or find it mildly useful).

VIA Labs will demonstrate their 4 port USB 3.0 xHCI Host at Computex 2010 in Taipei.  This is the world’s first demonstration of a chip with support for 4 host ports. 

<= VIA USB 3.0 xHCI 3 port Host

As I wrote earlier regarding USB 3.0 Host chips, a nice little price war should erupt with Hosts being made available from:

1. NEC
2. Fresco Logic
3. ASMedia
4. VIA

   I expect all 4 providers to be at Computex 2010 (June 1-5)showing their SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Hosts interoperating with dozens of USB 3.0 products.

More Hosts means more price competition, means better prices for consumers, means faster deployment of USB 3.0 across the board.

By the way, you can see our USB 3.0 IP, that is our USB 3.0 xHCI Host demonstration on Linux here.   When you get there you will need to scroll down a little.

Computex 2010 USB 3.0 Products

Lots more USB 3.0 products will likely be announced but I like the look of these early announcements.

Team Group will demonstrate its mobile USB 3.0 Hard Drive or TP1023.

The two USB 3.0 drives (TP1021,TP1022) will also be demonstrated at Computex.

The red pqi USB 3.0 SSD (Solid State Drive) which I’m sure you know acts like a giant flash drive, but faster than a typical flash drive and with a lot more memory.

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2. Tell your friends to visit this blog because you love it so much more than doing actual work.
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