News

posted on 13 June 2008 09:51

Rumoured complaints from Intel chip rivals AMD and Nvidia about Intel locking them out of the USB 3.0 standard development have caused Intel to release a statement saying it ain't so.

USB 3.0 should deliver a so-called SuperSpeed USB more than ten times faster than the current USB 2.0 spec and backwards compatible with it. USB 2.0 runs at 480Mbit/s, roughly 4MB/sec, and so USB 3.0 should, at a minimum, run at 4.8Gbit/s, roughly 800MB/sec. That will read and write data to terabyte external drives much faster than currently.

The spec is being looked after by the USB Promotors' Group formed by Intel, HP, Microsoft, NEC, NXP Semiconductors and Texas Instruments.

The trade association for the USB PRomotors' Group is the non-profit USB Implementers' Forum. Its Board of Directors is composed of the following companies and their designated representative Directors:

- Hewlett-Packard Company - Alan Berkema
- Intel Corporation - Jeff Ravencraft
- LSI Corporation - Dave Thompson
- Microsoft Corporation - Fred Bhesania
- NEC Corporation - Katsuhiko Nakazawa
-NXP Semiconductors - Geert Knapen

No AMD and Nvidia reps there. Nvidia is a member of the forum, along with over 700 other companies, although AMD is not currently listed.

In a response to these various complaints Nick Knupffer, a blogger on the Technology@Intel blog site has written a post  denying their substance.

It differentiates between the USB 3.0 specification and Intel's Host Controller specification, saying that the USB 3.0 spec: "is being developed by the USB 3.0 Promoter Group (HP, Intel, MSFT, NEC, NXP, and TI)."

Regarding the USB 3.0 spec' he writes: "The USB 3.0 Promoters issued a call for contributors in November 2007 and since then the USB 3.0 Promoter Group has been joined by over 180 USB 3.0 Contributor companies (Including other chipset makers such as AMD and Nvidia) who are helping to finalize the USB 3.0 specification. This spec is expected to be made publicly available by the USB 3.0 Promoter Group along with an adopter agreement early in the second half of 2008. (Very soon)"

That is later than the original availability date of within the first half of 2008.

Knupffer says: "In parallel, but separately; Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology. Think of the host controller spec as a ‘Dummies Guide’ to building a USB 3.0 compatible piece of silicon; it is NOT the USB 3.0 specification itself. The industry is keen to get this guide as it will allow them to build USB 3.0 compatible circuits without repeating the massive investment undertaken by Intel."

Further: "Intel plans to make this spec available early in second half of 2008 with a no-royalty licensing obligation (Basically: free, gratis, unpaid, zero dollars, free of charge, at no cost, on the house)."

And further still, this is the same process that was followed for USB 1.0 and USB 2.0.

In other words the rumour mongers should shut up.

However, by having first hand knowledge of this host controller spec Intel is potentially giving itself a time-to-market advantage which irritates AMD and Nvidia. There's nothing they can do since they dare not risk incompatibilitywith Intel.

For the rest of us we're all probably saying bring it on. We want faster USB transfers and hope to see USB 3.0 product coming to market next year.

^{[Chris Mellor.]}