If you follow Synopsys Mergers news we acquired a Japanese company.

Here I am welcoming the team our Japan IP R&D Design Team to Mountain View today.

Eric and Synopsys IP R&D Design Team

Listen carefully to the video for clues on how this entry relates to USB 3.0 IP.

We recorded the video on a video camera using USB IP from Synopsys.  Be sure to watch it in 720p video.

Once we reach more than 150 hits on the video above, I will publish the blooper video that goes with this video.

So either watch the video 149 more times, or forward this to your friends and…

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If you don’t love USB, I don’t know why you possibly would have read this far down on this page.

Most people don’t have a clue what goes on with USB 3.0 Certification (or USB 2.0 Certification).

So here’s a video of our USB 3.0 xHCI Host interoperating with a whole bunch of USB products.    These products are arranged into a USB Gold Tree as specified by the USB-IF.

USB 3.0 xHCI Host Certification Test–USB 3.0 Interoperability with USB Gold Tree

We use the MCCI USB 3.0 xHCI Host Stack running on Windows 7.

To my knowledge, this is the only time anyone’s ever been crazy enough to post a video demonstration of the USB Gold Tree.

You can see you need to work with USB 3.0, USB 2.0, and USB 1.1 Devices.

The USB 3.0 Gold Tree uses

• USB 3.0 Hub and USB 3.0 Flash Drive for Super Speed Bulk In and Out Transfers
• Four USB 2.0 Hubs
• Two USB 2.0 Web Cams for Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Isochronous Transfers and Interrupt Transfers
• USB 2.0/1.1 USB Headset with Microphone for USB 2.0/1.1 Isochronous Transfers
• Two USB 2.0 Flash Drives for Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Bulk In and Out Transfers
• Keyboards and Mice for Low Speed USB 1.1 Interrupt Transfers
• And not visible underneath is a USB 2.0 Printer for more Bulk Out Transfers and Interrupt Transfers.

In this way, it’s possible to test for all the different types of USB traffic.

The USB 3.0 xHCI Host is implemented on our HAPS FPGA-Based Prototyping Platform with our Synopsys USB 3.0 PHY.

For all the details on USB Compliance (and this is really for your USB engineers) go to http://compliance.usb.org/

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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.

So the European Union has said, you must use USB as the charger for all cell phones in Europe going forward.  In fact, the EU estimates that there are over 1 Billion non-USB chargers sitting around Europe that are simply garbage.  By changing over to USB as the standard connector, this will eliminate the need to destroy or dispose billions of non-USB chargers.

It’s likely then you won’t get a charger in the box of your new mobile phone within the next 3 years.  Every phone maker will assume you have 3 in a drawer somewhere.

These (fun) videos from the EU explain why.  Who would have thought the EU could be so much fun?

Dinner Party and EU Common Phone Charger using USB Power

USB Dinner Party and EU Common Phone Charger using USB

USB Power for Phone

I’ll have a new blog on Thursday (or Friday) with referrals to 3 other blogs.  I expect that you will come back to my blog 2x for each click you give them.

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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.

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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Smartphones drive the need for USB 3.0 in digital cameras and digital video cameras to

From the Apple event Monday

“We’re now on to the camera in the iPhone 4S. “We set our sights on competing with the best point-and-shoot cameras,” Mr. Schiller says. The camera has an 8-megapixel sensor, 60 percent more pixels than the iPhone 4’s camera. It has a backside-illuminated CMOS sensor that captures 73 percent more light. It’s 33 percent faster.” 

                                       – At Apple meeting per NYTimes Blog linked below

This means:

1) Smartphone you buy from Apple (and soon Google and RIM) pretty much can replace mid-range digital cameras.

2) Anyone in the middle to upper income range, every teenager, now doesn’t need to buy a separate digital camera (they probably seldom do anyways)

3) Enthusiasts who like great pictures, have a better mobile phone camera, and don’t need to buy a separate camera.

4) Camera makers had better add features like embedded memory, and USB 3.0 to make their cameras and video cameras viable

Digital Video Camera makers already have lots of storage inside the camera, and usually an SD card slot.  DVCs need USB 3.0 now.

DSCs should follow quickly, if you don’t move now, you will lose to those moving already.

Here links to Live Blog coverage of the Apple Event at the Wired Blog and  the NYTimes Blog and the Wired Blog

Thanks to Steve Jobs

I’m tremendously grateful to Steve Jobs for his drive, his creativity, his tenacity that really pushed everyone to Think Different. 

The Tech World remade itself multiple times in his lifetime directly due to his influence, effectively creating new realms of creativity, competitiveness, entertainment and utility.

Many Thanks Mr. Jobs.

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Windows 8 from a USB 3.0 Flash Drive

At the Build Conference, Microsoft  introduced something called “Windows To Go” 

This lets you boot Windows 8 on a USB Flash Drive, so you no longer have to carry around a whole computer.  You could carry around USB Flash Drive that has your entire Windows 8 workspace, software, music files, browser bookmarks, Work files, and other elements.

So you could have a Computer at Work and a Computer at Home, and you would just carry the USB drive back an forth.  You wouldn’t need to contaminate your home computer with work materials.

So how does this work?

• You reset your BIOS to boot from USB
  • BIOS is the firmware/software that starts up your computer before the Windows operating system starts
• Plug in your USB Drive
• Start up your PC
• Windows 8 will load from your USB flash drive
• All your software/applications will be available
• Files will be stored either on a Windows Live SkyDrive (Windows Cloud I’m guessing this is)
• When you shutdown, you take everything with you on your drive.

This works with USB 2.0 okay, but it will work better on USB 3.0. It will boot faster.

Win 8 demo on a MacBook

Here’s a demonstration of Windows 8 using Windows To Go on a MacBook run by ExtremeTech

Better on USB 3.0

The Microsoft Speaker at the //Build conference said that the USB experience will be “much enhanced” with USB 3.0.

To me this means it will boot faster and run faster, more like an SSD inside your PC if you have both a USB 3.0 Flash Drive and fast flash memory.  The free USB memory sticks you get today, the cheap ones you get at Target, FNAC, Metro, NOVA, BestBuy, Gome, or Yodobashi Camera.  You need to buy the more expensive drives. 

If you watch the video below, and advance to 27:00 (27 minutes) then you can see what happens when you unplug the USB drive while running Windows off of it. Basically, the PC will give you 60 seconds to re-insert the drive and resume, or it will shut down. You will see that Win 8 resumes cleanly, resuming a video playback, if you re-insert the drive within 60 seconds.

Here are some tips to view the video, in the lower right corner, click “Format”, then choose “Smooth Streaming”, then advance to the time slot of 0:27:00 for the Windows To Go Flash Drive removal and re-insertion.

The Windows USB 3.0 Logo Program has an additional requirement for a USB Windows To Go Drive
It will require that a USB drive can withstand many,many Win 8 file accesses over a 2 year lifetime.  This means it needs to be able to have Win 8 running on the drive and constantly being accessed over time. USB 3.0 Logo Program requirements are discussed at 28:50. on the video above.

For an even better article on the Windows To Go feature running on a USB 3.0 Flash Drive, you can go read the ExtremeTech article here.

Next Week: (Maybe) Pictures of Thunderbolt products.  (Definitely) How USB will save the earth from it’s doom.

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