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SAN FRANCISCO--Intel and others plan to release a new version of the ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus technology in the first half of 2008, a revamp the chipmaker said will make data transfer rates more than 10 times as fast by adding fiber-optic links alongside the traditional copper wires.

Intel is working fellow USB 3.0 Promoters Group members Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, NEC and NXP Semiconductors to release the USB 3.0 specification in the first half of 2008, said Pat Gelsinger, general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, in a speech here at the Intel Developer Forum.

In an interview after the speech, Gelsinger said there's typically a one- to two-year lag between the release of the specification and the availability of the technology, so USB 3.0 products should likely arrive in 2009 or 2010. A prototype shown at the speech is working now, and USB 3.0 will have optical and copper connections "from day one," he added.

The current USB 2.0 version has a top data-transfer rate of 480 megabits per second, so a tenfold increase would be 4.8 gigabits per second. Many devices don't need that much capacity, but some can use more, including hard drives, flash card readers and optical drives such as DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD. The fastest flash card readers today use IEEE 1394 "FireWire" connections that top out at 800 megabits per second.

In addition, USB 3.0 will offer greater energy efficiency, Gelsinger said. It will be backward compatible, so current USB 2.0 devices will be able to plug into USB 3.0 ports.

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One of the announcements to come out of the IDF keynote this afternoon was Pat Gelsinger's discussion and demonstration of USB 3.0 technology. Although still in the prototype stage, USB 3.0 is aiming for 10 times the bandwidth of current USB2.0 solutions, or approximately 5Gbps. Since this requires fiber optic cabling, USB 3.0 will add a length of optical data cable to the mix, though USB 3.0 will retain full compatibility with USB 2.0 (and, one assumes, USB 1.0 as well).
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Gelsinger expects the final version specifications to be finished by the first half of 2008, with USB 3.0 peripherals realistically appearing in 2009 or 2010. There are an increasing number of devices that could potentially take advantage of the additional bandwidth, including external hard drives, flash readers, video cameras, and the all-new USB-compliant llama expected to be genetically delivered from the Andes sometime in late 2011. Obviously a USB llama wouldn't be much use without a USB 3.0 device—ever tried downloading from a llama over an old 10BaseT network? Yeah. It'd be worse.

As for the other, official features of USB 3.0, there remains quite a bit of information we don't know, and it would have been nice for Intel to have included additional information. USB has long been criticized for relatively high CPU usage. This has inevitably become less of an issue as CPU performance has improved, but devices capable of using USB 3.0's higher bandwidth capabilities could make CPU usage a problem again unless the issue is addressed during spec development. Issues like cable length, available power provided, and the number of devices per channel are all unrevealed as yet, and possibly unresolved. The Inquirer has a few more details on the spec (and the rest of the keynote) if you're interested.

As far as future market competition, its target of 5Gbps puts USB 3.0 ahead of current eSATA (3Gbps), which is really the only other device protocol under active development that might challenge it as a peripheral interconnect. Although an IEEE 1394c protocol has been developed and published as of June 8 2007, no company has announced an intent to produce a product or chipset that utilizes the standard. FireWire remains supported in certain sectors, but I'd personally be surprised if the combination of USB 3.0 and eSATA doesn't push FireWire out of the market completely. As for the nascent specification, the proposed 5Gbps speed is great and all, but hopefully the development committees will acknowledge some of the other concerns regarding the USB 2.0 protocol and incorporate solutions for them, rather than carrying them over into another product generation.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9780794-7.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070918-intel-announces-demonstrates-usb-3-0.html

Το USB 3.0 Promoter Group ανακοίνωσε σήμερα την ολοκλήρωση των προδιαγραφών για το διάδοχο σύστημα διασύνδεσης. Το νέο interface παρέχει δέκα φορές μεγαλύτερες ταχύτητες από τον προκάτοχό του και αναμένεται να ενσωματωθεί στα μελλοντικά περιφερειακά και στις καταναλωτικές συσκευές. Φυσικά, ακόμα και αν οι κατασκευαστές hardware υϊοθετήσουν αμέσως την νέα τεχνολογία, δεν περιμένουμε να εμφανιστούν αμέσως νέα προϊόντα που θα το ενσωματώνουν.


Η ανακοίνωση ακολουθεί την από φαση που πήρε η Apple για την εγκατάλειψη της τεχνολογίας Firewire τουλάχιστον σε μερικά από τα συστήματά της, ξέροντας ότι το USB 3.0 θα ξεπερνάει το bandwidth του Firewire (IEE1394).

Πηγή – περισσότερα: TGDaily (http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-40225-135.html)

Χμ.. κακή περίοδος για αγορές pc.. Εν αναμονή των solid state disks και του usb3 που θα φέρουν μετά από καιρό σημαντική βελτίωση στην ταχύτητα κάθε μηχανήματος..

και τις oled που τις βάζεις;

Είναι ολίγον άσχετο με την αγορά pc.. αφορά την αγορά οθόνης :P