Synopsys worked with the USB-IF SSIC Working Group to develop a SSIC Proof of Concept demonstration. 

The USB-IF has been working on SSIC for some time.

This Proof of Concept in FPGA is to test the SSIC specification version 0.90 to see if it actually works in hardware.

It worked (mostly).

We learned, as expected, the SSIC Spec needs changes.

We learned what works and fixes need to be made to the specification.

We used our own HAPS FPGA platforms and standard PCs.  The HAPS51-2s are connected to the PCs with PCIe.  The FPGA boards are shown below.

On top (left side of table) we have a modified USB 3.0 Host for SSIC.

On bottom (right side of table) we have a modified USB 3.0 Device for SSIC.

There is no USB 3.0 PHY in this set up.  Read to end for more on the PHY used.

Take note:  FPGA-Based Prototyping is a good idea as part of specification development too.

As with our standard USB 3.0 Host and Device, we could close timing in the FPGAs at 125MHz even when the FPGA design is over 80% utilized.

We’ve edited 2 versions the SSIC Proof of Concept video for your viewing pleasure. 

A short version and a long version.

The short version focuses on the hardware setup and the demonstration.  It’s posted below.

SSIC Proof of Concept – Short Version

This is Shailesh and I just before we started the demo.

What is the point?

The SSIC USB-IF WG has both proven the SSIC concept works, and improved it using FPGA-based prototyping.  The USB 3.0 can be used with the SSIC modifications to use USB 3.0 on PCB for chip-to-chip communication with less power than USB 3.0 outside the box.  It preserves software so you continue to use existing USB 3.0 drivers and stacks.

What is SSIC?

See the previous entry here for a brief description.

It will be used to connect Applications Processor chips to other USB 3.0 peripherals inside the box, on PCB.  It is a chip-to-chip protocol. 

For example, it could be used to connect a Mobile Apps Processer to a WiFi baseband chip.  The Apps processor could use the same, unmodified USB drivers it uses for an external, USB plug in WiFi modem.   It uses USB 3.0 to communicate, but it can less power because it drives signals over a few centimeters of PCB, not 3 meters of USB 3.0 Cable.  SSIC uses a different M-PHY for SSIC.   It uses less power.  We don’t use an M-PHY in the SSIC Proof of Concept.

 

Caveat and Disclaimer

This is not a product and this is not a product announcement.  This is a working demonstration of the technology.

Read to the End

The long version is 7 minutes and has a lot of detail and is only for the most brave USB viewers.   It has a more detail detail on how the two boards are connected.  So I lied.  There is no detail how the two platforms are connected when the USB 3.0 PHY is not used. You have to wait until Thursday and watch that video.

See you Thursday.

Subscribe

This Blog Address moved to:

• http://blogs.synopsys.com/tousbornottousb/
• To subscribe, click on this link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/synopsysoc/ToUSB

I wanted to post the short video first and post the long video later, but someone pointed out to me that no one is going to ever watch these videos twice.

So I separated them anyways because you were going to come back on Thursday anyway.

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/

Subscribe

This Blog Address has moved to:

• http://blogs.synopsys.com/tousbornottousb/
• To subscribe, click on this link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/synopsysoc/ToUSB
• Leave comments below, even if you disagree with me.

Subscribe (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.

Subscribe

This Blog Address has moved to:

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

To subscribe, click on this link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/synopsysoc/ToUSB

Leave comments below, even if you disagree with me.

Subscribe now.  You know you want to.  It will be the lowest calorie activity you engage in today.

More USB 3.0

The USB-IF reported this week that 237 USB 3.0 products have certified.

First, This is Awesome.

237 products easily supports hundreds of millions of USB 3.0 products

Second, We need More.

Until now, SuperSpeed USB 3.0 certification has not been superspeedy.

Why?

1) Mostly to keep the quality of the USB 3.0 certified products at a high level
2) To make sure 3.0 works with 2.0

Certification tests had to be done at:

1) The USB-IF labs in Oregon or
2) at Quarterly USB-IF Plugfest held in Hawaii, Taiwan, or California.

I wish I could have gone to Hawaii. I’ve never been to Hawaii.

The Great Improvement is:

The USB-IF now says:
1) Take your USB 3.0 Device (peripheral) and have pre-testing done at a 3rd Party lab.
2) The USB-IF lab spot checks the results, and certifies the products officially.

This increases Certification throughput capacity by probably 10-20x.

So, thousands of USB 3.0 certifications can begin.

More USB 3.0

Asmedia and Etron have both announced they have USB 3.0 Host Certifications.

These companies join TI, Fresco, and NEC discrete Host providers.

This should keep the cost of Host implementations down

In fact, Global Sources says,

“Material overhead declined in the past months, thus pushing down USB 3.0 cable quotes. Host controller spending slipped to as low as $2 from $7 to $9 in 2008. This reduced cable rates by $0.50 to $1 compared with six months ago. The variant is still three or four times more expensive than USB 2.0 types, but prices are forecast to drop further”

Most new laptops have USB 3.0 as a standard feature (maybe not the cheapest laptops).

H.264 over USB

The USB-IF also released a new standard that allows for H.264 over USB.  It’s always been possible, this just standardizes it and makes it easier.  Read the press release here.

SUBSCRIBE

Send this URL onto your friend. and tell them to
Subscribe to this Blog, one option to subscribe is as follows:

• Go into Outlook
• Right click on “RSS Feeds”
• Click on “Add a new RSS Feed”
• Paste in the following “http://feeds.feedburner.com/synopsysoc/ToUSB?format=xml”
• Click on “Accept” or “Yes” or whatever the dialogue box says.

USB 3.0 PC Chipset Support

Rick Merritt of the EETimes reports a rumor today that 2 major PC Chipset companies brought USB 3.0 support to a recent USB Plugfest.

The USB-IF holds a quarterly USB Plugfest interoperability testing, usually in San Jose, California, but also in Asia.  The USB-IF held the most recent (February) USB Plugfest in Hawaii. It’s halfway between Japan/China/Taiwan/Korea and the U.S., and cheap this time of year for flights and hotel rooms, yet I’ve still never been to Hawaii.

What is a USB Plugfest?   At a USB Plugfest, companies set up test suites with their Hosts and PCs.  Companies with Peripherals tour the different rooms (based on an assigned schedule) and test for interoperability.   If a device fails with a particular host, the 2 companies will typically spend the evening (and sometimes all night) debugging the problem to make sure that interoperability occurs.  This is one of the reasons that USB interoperability is really high and easy to use. 

If you pass 95% of the suites, and the standard USB Gold Suites (Electrical, Gold Tree, and Protocol Suites) you can get your device certified.

Back to the EETimes rumor report, it says that support should be available sometime in early 2012 in chipsets, but the companies were not available for comment.

Accelerating Discrete USB 3.0 Host Chip Shipments

In the same EETimes article, the Renesas (formerly NEC) representative is quoted as saying:

“Last year was limited to high-end PC models and adapter cards,” "We are seeing a big uptick in number of models [using USB 3.0] this year,"

Renesas’ competitor, Fresco Logic, tells the EETimes that they hope their shipments increase 10 times from the 1 million units Fresco shipped in 2010.

Combined with a dropping price in Host Chip ASPs, this means that USB 3.0 will become more mainstream this year, and completely mainstream in 2012 with chipset support.

If I’m right about this, I expect someone to send me 10 free tickets to Hawaii.

Please.

SUBSCRIBE

Send this URL onto your friend. and tell them to
Subscribe to this Blog, one option to subscribe is as follows:

• Go into Outlook
• Right click on “RSS Feeds”
• Click on “Add a new RSS Feed”
• Paste in the following “http://feeds.feedburner.com/synopsysoc/ToUSB?format=xml”
• Click on “Accept” or “Yes” or whatever the dialogue box says.

Sony and Microsoft have added Motion Control to their game systems.  Specifically, Sony has wireless motions sensing remotes (called the Move) similar to the Wii controller (WiMote).  Microsoft has the Kinect.

Microsoft Kinect gives the 5 year old XBox and will likely boost sales and lengthen the life of the XBox 360 further.

In fact, the Sony Move and the Microsoft Kinect will definitely inject revenue to game sales in general. 

The Kinect is a USB peripheral.  is a actually 2 video cameras in a box with microphones in the box.  The software constructs a 3D image of your body

Image Source: Gamespot.http://www.gamespot.com/special_feature/konnecting-kinect/image-feature/index.html?image=1

The EETimes did a teardown of the Kinect. 

The 2 PCB boards inside the Kinect included at least 2 USB 2.0 chips

1) an NEC USB 2.0 Hub. 

2) a TI USB Peripheral chip.

The Hub indicates that there must be at least 1 other USB peripheral in the chip.

For a listing of the major parts found by UBM TechInsights within Kinect go to the EETimes article here: http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4210649/Kinect-s-BOM-roughly–56–teardown-finds-?cid=NL_EETimesDaily

Second USB 3.0 Host Certified

The USB-IF granted Fresco Logic certification of their USB 3.0 xHCI Host Controller.  This is really, really, really important because it will put some real competition in the market for NEC’s USB 3.0 xHCI Host Chips, the first and previously only certified Host controller.  Digitimes reports that Fresco Logic already has Asustekand ASRock as customers for its Host Chip.  Digitimes also reports that prices have dropped to something like $2-$3 per chip, down from $6 initially for NEC Host Chip.

More competition, means lower prices, means more USB 3.0 everywhere.

Digitimes reports that USB 3.0 will appear in chipsets by January 2012.

Given that everyone from Apple’s Steve Jobs showed concerns about USB 3.0 deployment,

I can only say this:

USB 3.0 is complex. The Inventors of USB aren’t fooling around, they want to do it right. I find this encouraging.

Lots of products exist.  Some certified, others, not so much.   I can tell you there are plenty more that could be out there, but the USB-IF focuses on broad usability and compatibility.  For USB 3.0 to thrive, the USB-IF must be rigorous and those that want the certification need to pass those tests.

If I’m Apple,  Why rush?  Apple has plenty of innovation going on already.

Having said that, you can easily buy PCs and Laptops with USB 3.0 support today.  If you want 4x the speeds of USB 2.0, get those now.  They are only limited by the USB 3.0 Host card.  The peripherals will probably run even faster with the PCIe Gen 2 based USB 3.0 Host cards come out later.

Our Synopsys engineering team earned SuperSpeed USB 3.0 certification for our USB 3.0 IP Solution including our USB 3.0 Device Core and our USB 3.0 PHY in TSMC 65LP.  We designed our USB IP into a mass storage reference design.  Think of it as a hardware prototype of a giant USB 3.0 flash drive that costs over $100,000 in hardware.   See the hardware below.  At the USB-IF’s Platform Interoperability Lab in Oregon, we passed a rigorous set of tests over 2 days including protocol, electrical, and interoperability tests.

In the picture, you can see our awesome (yes, awesome) USB 3.0 PHY test chip on the daughter board on the right.  The board is big because we need access to lots of test signals for testing. 

While we had passed all the tests on the digital controller back in October 2009, we actually choose to wait for our PHY test chip to come back before getting formal certification.  (Also, the USB-IF is pretty strict about these things and said we couldn’t use a Rocket IOs in the FPGA to behave like a USB 3.0 PHY.  The strictness of the USB-IFs test procedures is one of the reasons why USB has been so successful.

The board on the left is our HAPS51FXT FPGA prototyping platform.  Its really been a reliable platform for our high speed USB 3.0 designs.  The cool thing is the FXT contains a whole bunch of Rocket I/Os that we can use to make PCIe or USB PHYs.  This means we can test our USB 3.0 Host with multiple ports by using the Rocket I/Os to simulate a bunch of USB ports.

Synopsys at the USB 3.0 Dev Con

At the USB 3.0 Developers Conference in Taipei, Taiwan, one of our lead USB 3.0 Architects gave a talk on USB 3.0 Peripheral Design.   I’d give you his name and picture, but you’d just try to recruit him.  If you want to know who he is, pick up a copy of the USB 3.0 Specification or the xHCI Host specification and read through the Technical Contributors.  You’ll find our Architect there. 

I learned 2 interesting facts from the Keynote:

• 10 billion USB enabled devices in the world today, and 3 billion new ones are being shipped each year according to In-Stat.
  My commentary:  I suspect about 500 million of those are keyboards and mice, but those count right?  About 300 million are PCs.  About 1 billion of those are mobile phones (is that right?)  The rest are all flash drives, hard drives, DVD/Blu-Ray Drives, printers, cameras…
• The USB-IF has certified over 75 products as SuperSpeed USB 3.0. 
  My commentary:  A bunch of them use the NEC Host chip, like the 20+ ASUS and GIGABYTE motherboards, or the HP, Fujitsu laptops.  However this is still important because it’s easy to mess up the system level drop-in of a USB 3.0 Host onto a motherboard.  PCB traces must be the right length.  Connectors have to be built to spec.

Tony Chen, a VP and Vice Chairman of ASUSTeK spoke about ASUS’s commitment to USB 3.0.  And Henry Kao, the VP of Sales and Marketing for GIGABYTE also spoke.  Lee Atkinson, a Distinguished Technologist from HP’s Consumer Notebook Group spoke about HP’s first USB designs in 1998 and their first 3 HP models with USB 3.0 support that are shipping today.

Jeff Ravencraft unveiled 25 certified SuperSpeed USB 3.0 products that are shipping.    You can see them here =>

Here’s our team with Mike Micheletti from LeCroy.  They make USB 3.0 Test and Measurement equipment.  I’ll be happy to give you his contact information.

Also, I ran into a guy who said, “I read your blog.”  I said, “Wow, so 3 guys, my dad, you, and my boss. Cool. Have a Synopsys pen.”

If you like this blog, forward it to someone you know.  If you don’t, tell me what you’d like to see.

Rate this entry 5 STARS below, or just rate me.  Not like I need to feel accepted or anything.

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.

I agreed to do this blog because there is so little opinionated stuff debunking the debunkers of Wireless USB. Yes, I’m a USB chauvinist, and a Wireless USB chauvinist, but I understand how this stuff gets adopted and used.  At least in my own mind.

USB Won, Certified Wireless will Win - So here’s the thing.  The USB-IF has the best certification and interoperability program of all the standards I’ve seen.  It has regular plug-fests for free testing, and 3^rd party labs for fee-based testing.  Procedures are clearly described, and there are gold tree tests with a range of USB devices.  Does your wired Hi-Speed USB (USB 2.0) printer/camera/widget work with a standard PC or laptop?  If it has the logo, it works.  This is one of the main reasons USB 2.0 is so ubiquitous.  Stuff with the USB Everything works together if it gets the logo.   USB is the most successful because of that.  CWUSB based on UWB will use the same infrastructure of spec, compliance, and logo.  

I’ve seen material attacking Certified Wireless USB and UWB.  Mostly based on the earliest product reviews.  For those of us around at the start of USB 2.0, this is like Deja Vu (no accents, sorry don’t speak French).  It’s true, the first UWB products are getting effective throughputs of 20 Megabits per second.  But, what was the real throughput of WiFi products at the beginning?  What are they now?  How much to people actually use?

The EETimes published this article on higher throughputs with 60GHz radios and WiFi as potential alternatives to UWB at gigabit speeds..  http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=W5B1LJS4T5R5SQSNDLSCKHA?articleID=202601507.

I also want a gigabit pipe into my house for $24.99 a month, but that ain’t happening.

60GHz is years away – Look, I’m super glad people are working on 60MHz, but beating out UWB?  This is just plain crazy talk. 60GHz radios are 5-7 years away from any kind of adoption. It’s true that these could be used widely in proprietary solutions, like point-to-point video in the near future.  And I’m sure there’s good technology.  However, the standards will not be in place for at least 2 years which means interoperability is 4 years out, and mass market adoption is further out.  (Sidenote: A friend of mine recently told me that they’ve been talking about 60GHz for 20 years)

802.11n here but interoperable? – And WiFi. WiFi is bigger than my ego. It’s everywhere.  I used it in 8 locations on my last trip to
Europe.  BUT, 802.11g’s maximum effective throughput is in the range of 20-25 Mbps.  The 802.11n standard has gone for 3 years of pre-N and “Draft-N” products.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft-NI have yet to see interoperability throughput results for products based on different chipsets.   If anyone can find this info please let me know.  The most recent article I found here: http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/06/airport-extreme-802-11n-base-station-tested-and-dissected/ gives a throughput of 9 MB/second (about 72 Megabits/second) at short ranges and 500KB/second (~4 Megabits/second) at 300feet.

Netgear product tests out at an impressive 100+ Megabits/second http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,1978612,00.asp but I’m still concerned a bit with interoperability.  Can I get 100 Mbps if the Draft-N chip in my laptop is different from the chip in the Router?  In the early days of WiFi, I vaguely recall that you had to have an SMC router and an SMC PCMCIA card to make the darn things work together. (I set up Linksys routers for me, my mom/dad, and my sister in about 2002).

UWB and Wireless USB Resources

Start here and look at the USB-IF at www.usb.org for lots of great information, specs and events.  WiMedia has good material at www.wimedia.org.

http://blog.alereon.com/  This start-up, Alereon, has some articles on UWB, Wireless USB, Regulations and other stuff.  Check on the CEO’s blog.  http://www.staccatocommunications.com/technology/articles.html This start-up, Staccato, more articles.

60 GHz, CWUSB, WUSB, Certified Wireless USB, UWB, Ultra-wideband, WiMedia, USB-IF, Hi-Speed USB, USB 2.0, USB Certification, Throughput, Alereon, Realtek, Staccato