Genesys to mass produce USB 3.0 controllers

GENESYS LOGIC will start mass production of controller chips for USB 3.0 card readers, thumb drives and SATA2 bridge devices in the first quarter of 2010.

USB 3.0 was released last November by the USB 3.0 Promoter Group. It can deliver data transfer rates 10 times faster than USB 2.0 can manage going downhill.

Digitimes quotes Genesys spokesman Chin-Te Wang as saying that the USB controller designer will mainly outsource its USB 3.0 production to TSMC.

Wang said that the next-generation USB 3.0 controllers will be mass produced using a 0.13µ process. The design house currently manufactures its USB 2.0 controller chips at 0.18µ.

Genesys expects to start making a profit on the technology in 2010, when the USB 3.0 controller market starts taking off.

Analysts say that SuperSpeed USB, as USB 3.0 is sometimes called, will represent a quarter of the USB market by 2013, with initial adoption to emerge in 2010.

Meanwhile Wang expects to still make a bob or two from USB 2.0 as Genesys estimates that shipments for card readers used in PCs will grow significantly in the third quarter. µ