Universal Serial Bus 3.0 - Research Paper Example

? Full Paper Universal Serial Bus 3.0 (Perenson, Whenever, we are in a process of transferring data from PC, DVD or a portable storage device, every second is being considered as minutes and hours, as the data transfer speed is similar to a snail’s pace. Likewise, in terms of data transfer is gigabytes or terabytes, data transfer speed is relatively slower and if the task is interrupted, everyone is reluctant to tries and initiates the troublesome and time consuming data transfer process again. Likewise, blue ray and other formats comprising of space in gigabytes or terabytes requires super-fast data transfer. The invention of USB 3.0, supporting massive data transfer with super-fast speeds, overcomes these problems. (Perenson, 2010) With a blazing data transfer speed of over 5 gigabits per second will certainly add value towards a better life. Apart from the blazing speed, USB 3.0 is backward compatible as well, as it can be used with traditional USB 2.0 ports. For achieving USB 3.0 compliant speed, a USB 3.0 supported device and USB 3.0 compatible cable is required. However, the cable can be used with USB 2.0 compatible devices with no gain in data transfer speeds. (Perenson, 2010) The technological improvements of the USB 3.0 are identical to PCI Express and the backward compatibility support is achieved by an intelligent design along with a dual bus. For USB 3.0, the design incorporates five lines i.e. 4 data lines and one ground wire for USB 3.0 singles. Apart from having identical ground and power wires, both of USB technology versions are dissimilar (Perenson, 2010). USB 3.0 Architecture Figure 1.1 {Source (Govindaraman, 2010)} (Govindaraman, 2010) The USB 3.0 architecture is inspired by the PCI express architecture and the ISO model. The architecture has Physical layer tagged as (PHY), protocol layer and link layer, as illustrated in Fig 1.1. The PHY incorporates the connectivity between the device and the host or a hub device. Identical to the PCI express architecture physical layer, USB 3.0 incorporates encoding and decoding, data scrambling and descrambling, serialization and deserialization features (Govindaraman, 2010). The responsibility of the link layer incorporates stable data integrity for link partners by deploying error detection algorithms (Govindaraman, 2010). Likewise, packets are constructed in the link layer and link commands are allotted. Moreover, the protocol layer is responsible for managing end to end flow of data via device and a host (Govindaraman, 2010). Similar to the USB 2.0 architecture, the super speed bus is responsible for carrying address, status, data and control information. The four packet types are identical to the USB 3.0 i.e. the transaction packet (TP) and the data packet (DP). However, two other packets named as Isochronous Timestamp Packet (ITP) and Link Management Packet (LMP) is new in the USB 3.0 architecture (Govindaraman, 2010). USB 3.0 Power Management The power management of USB 3.0 incorporates enhanced power management functions for addressing the requirements of battery powered devices and portable applications. Moreover, USB 3.0 has also introduced “function suspend” feature that activates power management for individual functions associated with a composite device. This feature provides flexibility for eliminating other functions associated with the device; however, other functions remain operational. Furthermore, power saving is accomplished by a new feature called as latency tolerance messaging (LTM) architecture that is integrated within the USB 3.0. Likewise, the device may send information to the host for the tolerance of maximum delay from the time it sends the status ‘ERDY’ (Govindaraman, 2010). The table illustrated in Fig 1.2, demonstrates comparison of different technologies. The conclusion highlights that USB 3.0 is 10 times faster than Fast Gigabit Ethernet, however, Gigabit Ethernet incorporates more power and the maximum cable length is also greater than USB 3.0. FireWire-b Gigabit Ethernet USB 2.0 USB 3.0 Camera Link Winner Second Place Bandwidth 80 MB/s 100 MB/s 40 MB/s 400 MB/s 680 MB/s (8-tap) Camera Link USB 3.0 Cable length 10 meters 100 meters 5 meters 5 meters 10 meters GigE 1394b Power + data over one cable Yes (45 W) Yes with POE (15 W) Yes (2.5 W) Yes (4.5 - 7.5 W) Yes with POCL (4 W) 1394b GigE Consumer acceptance Good Good Excellent Good -> Excellent None USB 2.0 USB 3.0 Multiple cameras Excellent Good Fair Excellent Fair 1394b USB 3.0 Camera control standard Yes - IIDC Yes - GigE Vision No In progress - USB3 Vision Yes - Camera Link Not USB 2.0… --- CPU usage Low Medium High Low Medium 1394b USB 3.0 Total cost* Medium Medium Low Low High USB 2.0 USB 3.0 Figure 1.2 {source: (Gibbons, 2012)} Challenges for USB 3.0 (Engbretson, 2009) Dissimilar to PCI express and Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA), the host channel for USB 3.0 is comparatively long measuring up to 10 to 12 inches. Similarly, the chip responsible for controlling the USB connector from the host is also present in a far distance. For example, many laptops and desktop computers have USB ports embedded in the front, rear of the side of the panel. (Engbretson, 2009) This distance that comprises of extraordinary length of 3 or more than 3 meters in length accompanies issues. Likewise, these issues results in the review of the specification deign for the chipset vendors imposing them to meet the signaling designs and chip requirements for a chip that is too far from the specified distance. (Engbretson, 2009) However, to overcome this issue or challenge, a continuous time linear equalization (CTLE) function is implemented to the signals for recovering the compliance measurements (Engbretson, 2009). USB 3.0 Compatibility Gibbons, M. (2012) Windows 7 do not support natively for USB 3.0 technology, however, Microsoft Windows 8 has a native support for USB 3.0. Moreover, Apple has still now shown any plans for supporting natively for USB 3.0. Gibbons, M. (2012) Linux operating system started supporting USB 3.0 in 2009 release, however, the current release do not properly support video streaming. The open source community of Linux is working for eliminating these issues. Moreover, for addressing the lack of support in the latest operating systems, chip vendors have manufactured their own drivers Gibbons, M. (2012). The material named as silicon is essential for enabling low level connectivity in USB 3.0 complaint devices and it is already available from vendors named as Gibbons, M. (2012) Renesas, Etron, AS Media, Texas Instrumental and many more. Likewise, these host controllers are also embedded in a large variety of desktop computers and laptops. Gibbons, M. (2012) It has been assumed by the market forecast of USB 3.0 that it will be readily available on every computing device by year 2014. For imaging devices, USB3 Vision standard has already been developed that will provide a de facto camera interface for cameras that are compatible with USB 3.0 technology. Moreover, the hosting for USB3 Vision standard is performed by the Automated Imaging Association (AIA) and the global trade association for the vision and imaging industry Gibbons, M. (2012). References Perenson, M. J. J.,Jon L. (2010). USB 3.0 arrives. PC World, 28(5), 46. Govindaraman, A., Sonia. (2010). USB 3.0--the next-generation interconnect. Electronic Design, 58(2), 67. Gibbons, M. (2012). USB 3.0 is here! Quality, 51, 12-15. Engbretson, M. (2009). USB 3.0 physical layer measurements. EE: Evaluation Engineering, 48(1), 14-19. Read More