USB 3.0 market take off to create a complete ecological

2021-09-27 10:46

The USB3.0 market seems to be finally showing signs of taking off-the USB Design Forum (USB-IF) recently certified nearly 120 products that meet the USB3.0 specification (SuperSpeedUSB). The transmission rate of USB3.0 can be increased from 480Mb per second of USB2.0 to 5G per second. USB-IF said that this batch of certified products cover motherboards, notebook computers, storage controllers, hard drives, PCIExpress and individual chips. According to IDC, an international research organization, the demand for USB3.0 chips will be 12.45 million in 2010 and 0.1 billion in 2011. USB3.0 can be described as "a bright future", and people from all walks of life began to take turns to attack this new market for epoch-making transmission technology.

Intel Action Boosts Popularization

Recently, Intel announced in the autumn developer forum (IDF) that, in addition to the SandyBridge motherboard launched next year, USB3.0 has been determined to be included in the reference design, the Westmere motherboard to be mass produced in the fourth quarter will also be built-in USB3.0 independent host (host) control chip, which will help accelerate the popularity of USB3.0.

Looking back on the development of USB2.0, we can find that since the birth of USB2.0 technology in 2000, the penetration rate has exceeded 80% in just 4 years. The reason why USB2.0 can be rapidly popularized in the market is that Intel quickly imported USB2.0 into the South Bridge chip. Therefore, Intel's attitude is the key to the rapid explosion of USB3.0 business opportunities. The new processor that Intel will launch early next year is SandyBridge equipped with a CougarPoint chipset that does not have a built-in USB3.0 host controller, which makes the industry quite criticized. At present, many host factories and notebook computer factories have listed USB3.0 as standard equipment. At the same time, Intel's biggest competitor, Chaowei (AMD), has also decided to launch the HudsON chipset with built-in USB3.0 controller in the second quarter of next year, and will also cooperate with Renesas to introduce USB3.0 controller into the motherboard and officially fully import USB3.0 interface. In this case, Intel's support for USB3.0 should be a move.

It is worth noting that the optical fiber transmission interface LightPeak launched by Intel has not yet completed the specification formulation, and the progress has fallen behind. It is feared that it will not be launched until early 2012. LightPeak will use the same connector as USB 3.0. Intel also said that LightPeak and USB3.0 will coexist in the future and will not be in a competitive state.

Chip market resurgent

USB change is imminent, attracting chip manufacturers to actively rush in. At present, the USB3.0 control chip market is divided into three parts, including the host (Host) control chip, Hub (hub) and device (Device) control chip.

In the past, large Japanese factories occupied the mainstream of host-side chips, while US companies FrescoLogic launched USB3.0 two host-side control chips for PCIExpressII transmission interfaces in early June, narrowing the distance with Japanese manufacturers. And China's Taiwan a number of chip factories announced a big rush, including the original IP authorized by the wisdom of the Ruisi, ASUS's Xiangshuo, Weisheng subsidiary Weifeng and Yucheng and so on. According to the current progress, Taiwanese businessmen will ship small quantities one after another as soon as October.

Hub is the focus of USB3.0 development. It is an important bridge between Host and Device and is also extremely important to the development of technologies at both ends. At present, the market is still dominated by Japanese manufacturers.

In terms of device-side control chips, in addition to traditional Japanese and American manufacturers, IC design companies such as Taiwan Chuangwei, Wangjiu, Anguo and Qunlian have also invested.

The market demand for device-side controllers is single-chip, low-cost and small size, with dual-channel high read and write performance, and the ability to support the largest number of flash memory types possible. Some Taiwanese businessmen began to change their strategies, focusing on flash memory-related USB3.0Device control chips, starting with the best USB USB 3.0 control chip. Among them, Yincan USB3.0 chip has led the mass production, and Weifeng's new chip is also expected to be available in October. The industry said that at present, the USB3.0U disk solutions on the market all use USB3.0-SATAII bridge chip plus a SATA control chip, which makes the volume larger and requires other components, thus the cost is higher. Yincan and Weifeng have introduced a single chip solution, which can reduce the cost and make it easier to design.

The USB3.0 bridge chip with a large demand has become the most competitive battlefield. Japan's Fujitsu, the United States LucidPort has launched a USB3.0-SATA bridge chip, FaradayElectronics, PLX will also launch their own USB3.0-SATA bridge chip. China's Taiwanese manufacturers, including Weifeng, Xiangshuo, Yincan, Zhiwei, Chuangwei, etc. are also actively preparing for the war. According to reports, the bridge chip is mainly used in external storage devices or optical drives, and may appear in products such as portable devices and hard disk players in the future.

Need to build a complete ecosystem

After all, USB3.0 is a new specification, facing many challenges, to create a complete ecosystem is the top priority. From Host to Hub to Device, all need to be considered. In terms of Host control chip, in order to achieve ten times the transmission speed of USB2.0, USB3.0 control chip must use more advanced manufacturing process. Moreover, in addition to complex specifications and the need to have complete compatibility for USB1.0 and USB2.0, it also needs to meet the requirements of low power consumption and intelligent power management. Manufacturers should be cautious.

In the hub link, since USB3.0 devices will not have too many ports in the initial stage, and if there are too many ports, the power consumption will be high and the compatibility will be difficult to design, it will face many design challenges, especially the USB-IF compatibility test and the experience of future users.

The development of USB3.0Device control chip is relatively easy, but at present, it is facing the situation of "a hundred schools of thought contending". Everyone is either striving for the speed of mass production or keeping the price down. Wei Junxiong, senior marketing manager of Chuangwei Technology, said that in addition to requiring low power consumption, low temperature and high performance, USB3.0 Device chip products also have the compatibility of USB3.0 and USB2.0 functions that cannot be ignored. However, due to the high price of Host chips and the lack of popularity in the market, the development pace of Device chip manufacturers has been delayed.

At the same time, in terms of including connectors, Hub (hub) and other important accessories, the USB-IF has not yet worked out how to carry out the certification test plan, and the USB-IF work progress is still slightly behind the market development. The creation of an ecosystem requires the cooperation of USB-IF, OEMs, equipment manufacturers, and chip factories to achieve a win-win situation.

If you want to know more about the connector industry information and the latest market situation, please pay attention to the news of the connector.

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