Universal Serial Bus
(USB) 3.0, also known as "SuperSpeed USB," the next-generation external
interface standard for personal computers (PC) and other devices, is
just about ready for commercial rollout. The first compliant products
are almost certainly going to appear around the end of 2009, or early
2010. At the same time, though, Intel Corp of the US has disclosed it
is developing "Light Peak" (development codename) as a new external
interface to succeed USB. The commercial target date is 2010, raising
the potential for a competitor to USB 3.0 even as it prepares to hit
the shelves.
On Sept 21, 2009, the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) driving the standardization of USB 3.0 announced that the first USB 3.0 certification in the world had been awarded to the uPD720200 host controller from NEC Electronics Corp of Japan. NEC Electronics exhibited the integrated circuit (IC) at Intel Developer Forum 2009 (IDF2009) the following day, demonstrating that the system could write to external storage via USB 3.0 almost ten times faster than with USB 2.0 (Fig 1).
The USB 3.0 team, however, had a big shock when Intel announced Light Peak (Fig 2), because it utilizes optical transfer technology to achieve a data transfer rate on the order of 10Gbps. Intel seems to be aiming for a single external interface to handle a wide range of applications including data send/receive between PCs and peripherals such as solid-state drives (SSD) or camcorders, as well as video signals between PCs and displays. In short, it aims to replace a number of existing standards such as USB and DisplayPort. At IDF2009, Intel used Light Peak to transfer a high-definition television (HDTV) video signal, demonstrating that there was no video distortion even while other data was transferred simultaneously.
Light Peak uses a
0.25mm square Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) diode,
transmitting the signal through optical fiber. The 2-channel Light Peak
transceiver module, including photodiode and other components, has a
surface area of 12mm at present. Justin Rattner, vice president,
director, Intel Labs and chief technology officer at the firm, is
confident in its commercial success: "Volume-production effects will be
further increased when the range of application spreads from home
equipment to corporate equipment, thanks to its high speed. I think it
will finally break down the idea that optical transfer is too expensive
for many applications."
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