IDF 2007: Intel and friends plot course for USB 3.0

Intel is rallying the industry's troops in a bid to get a completed specification for Universal Serial Bus (USB) 3.0 - one that's 10 times the speed of the current connection generation - on the table during the first half of next year, the chip giant revealed at its Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco this week.

Computing heavyweights HP, Microsoft, NEC, NXP Semiconductors and Texas Instruments have joined forces with the chip giant to form the USB 3.0 Promoter Group to help drive the new super speed USB interconnection vision forward with the aim of getting products on the market as early as 2009, according to Pat Gelsinger, Intel's senior vice president and general manager of its digital enterprise group, who announced the industry alliance during his keynote speech at the event.

"One of the great successes of the IDF was probably when we launched USB and we have shipped around six billion devices since 2001," he told delegates. "When we launched USB we were thinking about keyboards, mice, DVD players and those kinds of things. After we did it, the industry went wild and look at all the other things that have appeared: USB mittens...a USB fridge with a can of Red Bull in it for when you're working late. Look at the incredible innovation unleashed by creating a [standard] that's now been adopted by the industry.

"The target for USB 3.0 is backwards compatibility with a goal of 10 times the performance [over USB 2.0]. It will also be energy efficient and have support for both optical as well as copper interconnects."

Referencing the company's I/O innovation, Gelsinger added: "We need a balanced platform. We can't just make fast engines, we have to make the rest of the car go fast aswell."

In terms of the speed advantages USB 3.0 will afford users when waiting for downloads to complete, Intel claims that USB 3.0 could potentially download a 27GB HD-DVD in just 70 seconds.

"USB 3.0 is the next logical step for the PC's most popular wired connectivity," said Jeff Ravencraft, an Intel technology strategist and president of the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF).

"The digital era requires high-speed performance and reliable connectivity to move the enormous amounts of digital content now present in everyday life. USB 3.0 will meet this challenge while maintaining the ease-of-use experience that users have come to love and expect from any USB technology."

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