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AMD puts USB 3.0 into its Fusion chipsets
CHIP DESIGNER AMD has become the first major PC chip vendor to support the USB 3.0 interface.
AMD announced that its A75 and A70M Fusion chipsets will be the first certified 'Superspeed USB' chipsets. Translated into plain English that means they will support the 5Gbps USB 3.0 interface that promises to bring not only higher transfer rates but also increased power supply for devices such as external hard drives.
By bringing USB 3.0 support into its Fusion chipsets, AMD has become the first chip firm to integrate a USB 3.0 controller into its silicon. Even though Intel is on the panel that designed the USB 3.0 interface, it has yet to announce a chipset that supports the interface, instead focusing on its Light Peak interface, now known as Thunderbolt.
Intel has said that its Thunderbolt bus is designed to co-exist with USB 3.0 but it's hard to see why Intel would bother with USB 3.0 once Thunderbolt starts to ramp up bandwidth. That said, USB 3.0 does provide backwards compatibility with USB 2.0 and that's what AMD will play on as it promotes Fusion.
Brian O'Rourke, principle analyst at In-Stat opined that USB 3.0 chipsets will drive adoption, saying, "Chipset integration is essential in order to make the latest version of USB dominant in the marketplace, and the first Superspeed USB chipsets will greatly impact adoption." Typically the mainboard vendors prefer not to add third party controller chips onto motherboards for cost, packaging and support reasons.
AMD hopes that system builders will adopt its Fusion platform, with vendors favouring a one chip solution rather than bolting a secondary USB 3.0 controller onto Intel chipsets. µ
Tags: Amd
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It seems it will take another 6 months to get usb 3 mainstream products. Currently laptops with usb 3.0 are quite expensive. I want a laptop with usb 3, blue ray , touch screen and 16gb memory and possibly 3D but cannot find any.
With the speed of USB3, the rate at which most HDDs can deal with data has been surpassed, so thunderbolt seems completely unneccessary for the mainstream user. Seeing as nearly all peripherals are USB, I can't see the mainstream user welcoming a change that results in new devices that can't fit old pcs. One of the greatest things about usb is that you can quickly transfer a large file onto a stick, then stick it in a 10 year old PC and (albeit slowly) copy the file over.
What I would welcome is a faster (and still backward compatible) version of ethernet.
This is great news. It should make USB3 cheap and easy enough to put on motherboards that it basically becomes a non-issue with the price, etc.
I have a feeling thunderbolt is going to end up in a similar state as Firewire. There will be much brouhaha and it will get adopted in several niche areas but generally be ignored by the mass market home user. Cost premiums, and other such factors will lead it into a slow death by simply being forgotten about.
On the other hand, Intel could use their clout and other monopolistic techniques to continually push it on the customers. Even then though, they'd need device manufacturers to adopt thunderbolt as well.
I guess we'll see how it pans out in the end, but I'm really hoping USB3 will be tops.