NEC Electronics America has recently unveiled its first prototype devices that support the USB 3.0 specification. The company has demonstrated the working of the new devices in the USB Tech Zone at Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2009. The demonstration featured a USB 3.0 PHY test chip that is developed by NEC.

According to NEC Electronics the new USB 3.0 based prototypes can support data transfer speed 10 times faster than the legacy USB 2.0 specification offers. This means we can expect devices like the Integral Courier 16GB USB stick to transfer data ten times as fast in the future, which is an exceptional improvement. Morover, it’s also good news that the new USB 3.0 devices are compatible with the old USB 2.0 specification as well. However, plugging it into the old USB interface will of course force the device to work below its full potential. The company also revealed that it is currently evaluating a large number of USB 3.0 devices including bridge chips, hub controllers etc.

Katsuhiko Nakazawa, general manager for digital consumer and connectivity strategic business unit, NEC Electronics America commented, “NEC Electronics continues to deliver innovative solutions to help establish and promote the adoption of new USB specifications, and USB 3.0 represents a natural evolution of the USB standard, delivering greater transfer capabilities for today’s feature-rich consumer electronics products. As a leading supplier of USB and PCI Express technologies, we offer all of the building blocks required to develop the next generation of USB technology, and we are also working to develop new SuperSpeed USB devices that will offer the required performance increases and interoperability with existing USB standards needed to facilitate a smooth transition to the new standard.”

Tags for this article: ces 2009, chip, devices, las vegas, nec, superspeed, usb 3.0

Symwave, the leading semiconductor supplier of high-performance analogue/mixed-signal connectivity solutions for the PC, consumer and mobile devices, is ready with the world’s first consumer application of SuperSpeed USB 3.0. The new application will offer an incredible data transfer rate (10 times faster than the legacy USB 2.0) as it will run on the third version of Universal Serial Bus architecture.

The company is collaborating with the leading cable, components and hard drive manufacturers to demonstrate the transfer speeds of USB 3.0 at the consumer Electronics Show or CES. It will demonstrate an unprecedented data streaming to and from external storage devices at a speed which was unattainable previously. The demonstration will take place at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada from 8th Jan 2009 to 11th Jan 2009.

The SuperSpeed USB is set to amaze the next digital generation and will hit the technology market in the second half of next year. So we will have to wait until then before seeing actual flash drives, like the Fujifilm USB Drive 2GB, which use the USB 3.0 standard, instead of the current USB 2.0 profile. Till now the interested parties have read about the technical specifications and capabilities of the USB 3.0 in theory only but now the demonstration by Symwave will let them experience the amazing powers of the new USB in real time and will give a clearer idea about the upcoming technology.

nSys Design Systems, the developer of the world’s largest portfolio of Verification IPs, has launched Free evaluation licenses for its USB 3.0 verification suite. It has been launched to make qualified users understand and experience the functionality of SuperSpeed USB 3.0 practically.

The USB 3.0 or SuperSpeed USB format is expected to offer data transfer rates of up to 5Gbps, far exceeding the speeds of current USB 2.0 devices like the Trekstor USB-Stick RE 1GB. This means that one can copy 25 GB of data in just 70 seconds with USB 3.0 and the best part is that the new specifications are backward compatible with USB 2.0/1.1. The USB 3.0 nVS license is an important step towards cross checking the reliability and performance of the third version of Universal Serial Bus. It is the key element in testing and finding out any bugs in the USB 3.0 based environments before the design is actually embedded on the silicon chips.

Atul Bhatia, CEO of nSys Design Systems says, “Our USB 3.0 nVS is built upon the widely accepted and proven Verification IPs for PCI Express and USB 2.0. Our customers will benefit tremendously from the verification of the USB 3.0 specification. They will be able to identify non-compliance to the standard very easily because of availability of Test Suites in the nSys Verification Suite.”

Tags for this article: superspeed, usb