InternetUSB 3.0 One Step Closer to Reality

Intel releases a near-final spec that all USB vendors can use to make products that can run 10 times faster than USB 2.0.

Intel has announced the Extensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) draft specification, revision 0.9, is now available for review, making USB 3.0 one step closer to reality. The news comes just ahead of the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco next week. The USB 3.0 (define) architecture was first demonstrated at last year's IDF show and is on track for finalization this year, with products hitting the market in 2009. The chief improvement in USB 3.0 will be a ten-fold increase in throughput to 4.8 gigabits per second, or 600 megabytes per second. At that speed, USB 3.0, also known as "SuperSpeed USB," would be faster than the Serial ATA (SATA) (define) controllers used on today's hard drives. This could have a major impact on the market, notes Gartner analyst Steve Kleynhans, who noted that USB 2.0 was fast enough to bring about cheap, mass market external storage. "USB 2.0 allowed external storage of all types," he told InternetNews.com. "Before then, if you wanted an external optical drive, you had to use a proprietary or SCSI connector, and that wasn't cheap." RELATED ARTICLES Do You Know Where That USB Drive Has Been? PGP Adds Vista, USB Drive Encryption Support Has SanDisk Solved USB Device Security? Wireless USB Devices Coming This Year For more stories on this topic: USB 2.0 led to the ability to use digital cameras and camcorders, since before there wasn't a way to connect the digital... [ Read more on www.internetnews.com ]

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