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USB3.0 xHCI spec released

Unforked
Wednesday, 13 August 2008, 16:58

IT LOOKS LIKE the USB3.0 forking has been defused today with AMD, Dell, Microsoft and NEC all signed up for the new spec. Intel is releasing the Extensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) today as well.

If you recall, there was going to be a fork on USB3.0, but it appears that several of the forkers are on board now. We wonder what late night negotiations were done to prompt that. In any case, it looks like all the major players are on board at last, so the forked spec will likely die at the current v.5.

In any case, xHCI v0.9 is now available from Intel under RAND-Z royalty free licensing. If you are interested in the spec, it will probably show up here in the near future. In Q4, Intel will release v0.95 in Q4 under the same terms as v0.9.

Let the fun begin, peripherals with 5Gbps of bandwidth can't be all that bad. We look forward to a future where both Zune 4 owners will realize they are bitten by DRM with 10x less latency, who could argue that technical advance? µ

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Comments
Terrible Tactics

I think the worst thing of all that anyone does is to release something to the public before it even reaches version 1.0 and in this respect i am talking about hardware as software is extensibly updatable over time but its always nice to have most of the bugs worked out.

but with hardware i dont want to be an early adopter or when i buy my new computer as needed it have an older version of a standard thats perfectly workable but then ends up being incompatible with my USB v1.0 HDD i just bought

posted by : Mauller, 13 August 2008 Complain about this comment
sigh...

The last part of your article is quite biased: 

"We look forward to a future where both Zune 4 owners will realize they are bitten by DRM with 10x less latency, who could argue that technical advance?"

as if the iPod/Itouch is free of DRM. 
my girlfriend has the 1st gen Zune and it actually transfers files pretty fast, so I'm not sure what you're trying to get at other than FUD.

posted by : lennie, 13 August 2008 Complain about this comment
WHY

You couldnt help yourself could you, 

you take an otherwise normal report and screw it backwards by opening your trap an giving opinions.

It would make our lives that much better if they stuck a big star next to your posts so we dont even have to waste the bandwidth reading it.

posted by : Darren, 13 August 2008 Complain about this comment
Latency vs bandwidth

Increased bandwidth does *not* mean decreased latency. Imagine you have a hosepipe and a tap. When you turn on the tap, it takes some time before anything comes out of the other end. That's latency. Bandwidth is how much water the pipe can carry once it does start to arrive.

The latency may well be improved, but it's unlikely to be one tenth of the latency of Hi-Speed USB.

posted by : Mike Dimmick, 14 August 2008 Complain about this comment
Is this the Killer App for Vista?

Will USB3 be the Killer App that makes us take up Vista?

I can't see Microsoft supporting it for XP.

Be nice if I was wrong...

posted by : Stuart Halliday, 14 August 2008 Complain about this comment
re: sigh...

Hi Lennie,

RE: your bias observation.

You're obviously new here. Hi, welcome to The Inquirer.


posted by : JP Chow, 14 August 2008 Complain about this comment
*

--[It would make our lives that much better if they stuck a big star next to your posts so we dont even have to waste the bandwidth reading it.]--

My goal in life is to generally to ONLY read Charlie Demerjian's articles and skip the rest, which would also be helped by having a big star next to them.

posted by : Stephen Brooks, 14 August 2008 Complain about this comment
Re: Terrible Tactics

i AGREE!!!

But.....history has shown us MANY other versions of this EXACT method, the most recent 2 I can think are:

1. Blu-Ray
2. Vista

Gotta love it!
Stinging/sucking money from us ROCKS

posted by : Leo, 15 August 2008 Complain about this comment
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