To USB or Not to USB

Well, my originally Blog Entry was decapitated so you only read the fascinating Introduction and got to watch the video.

Let’s face it, that’s all you really cared about anyways.

First part of the Blog is Repeated here – If you read that then skip to the ****** below

After working for more than a year  with the USB spec experts in writing the standard, I’m happy and ecstatic to link to you our industry’s first platform-to-platform 10G USB 3.1 Host-to-Device demo:  

The demo illustrates

1)      Enumerate, Connect & Recognize USB 3.1 Device in a Flash Drive-like design.

2)      File Transfer from Device to Host

3)      File Transfer from Host to Device

4)      Throughput benchmarking with the ATTO testing software

5)      Throughput demo with the CrystalBench HD benchmark software

We are running everything on the HAPS70 FPGA-Based Prototyping Platforms transmitting data 10G USB speeds.

For the two HAPS 70 FPGA-Based Prototyping Platforms.

• 10G USB 3.1 Device, configured as a Mass Storage Device on the Left
  • We use the RAM on the HAPS RAM as a RAM Drive
    • Eliminates/overcomes the slowness of real flash
  • Connects using PCIe to a PC running Linux
  • PC executes firmware behaving like a flash/thumb drive
  • Think of this as a $10M flash/storage drive.
• 10G USB 3.1 Host acts like an after market add in card for a computer.
• • PC runs Win 8.1, a Release version
  • PC runs unmodified USB 3.0 Drivers from MCCI (more on this later)

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We connect the two platforms using a standard SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Cable (a blue cable).

The HAPS platform has the necessary speed to run an at speed 10G USB 3.1 controller.

Here you can see the USB 3.0 B-Connector used on the MGB card. 

In the next picture you can see the A-Connector on the MGB card.  This is the Device, or 10G USB 3.1 Host acting as a USB 3.1 Host. It’s just like an add-in card.

The Rocket I/Os provide the speed to implement a 10G USB PHY.   The actual signaling is at 10 GHz which is necessary to deliver enough data for our controllers to process at 10G speeds.

Here’s the Video at YouTube

Your key points to remember:

1)      The USB 3.1 specification works

2)      Synopsys can build and demonstrate working USB 3.1 Device and Host Prototype

3)      It works with unmodified USB 3.0 Drivers for backward compatibility

4)      It works with standard USB 3.0 Cables and Connectors (also for backward compatibility)

5)      It works at 10G speeds

6)      HAPS70 is a good platform for developing and testing 10G USB and comparably fast, complex protocols

7)      Synopsys is the first to demonstrate all this and the first company in the world to demonstrate all this.

I was going to try to put some of my personality into this blog entry.  I decided this is too important. 

For more on the HAPS platforms we use, please visit Mick Posner’s Blog at “Breaking the Three Laws” and his entry “Prototyping Cutting Edge 10G USB 3.1 Standards”

He wrote that shortly before he was admitted to the hospital for some sort of allergic reaction (he almost died or something) which you can also read about on his blog by reading this weeks entry.

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 If you like this this USB Humidifier, go ahead and send me a $13 bill and I can buy one for myself.  I will bring it to distant lands, all of which have very dry and arid hotel rooms.