Fresco Logic Showcased USB 3.1 Prototype Hardware

Fresco Logic, Inc. demonstrated SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps (USB 3.1) data transfer on its hardware development platform at the Intel Developer Forum.

This demonstration marks the first public showing of a working SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps host and mass storage device transferring data. USB is a standard in computing, and in its newest revision, USB 3.1, the data transfer rate jumps to 10 Gb/s on a bi-directional link, more than double the effective bandwidth of the already fast SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard.

“The USB-IF is pleased to see Fresco Logic develop early implementations that showcase key features supported by the USB 3.1 specification,” said Jeff Ravencraft, USB-IF president and COO. “The Fresco Logic demonstration shows a significant performance increase that devices and hosts will support based on the USB 3.1 specification, and the demo shows the value that this performance increase brings to consumers.”

In parallel with the development of the USB 3.1 specification, the company has constructed a hardware prototyping platform consisting of a PCIe add-in card with a Xilinx FPGA device implementing its SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps host and device controllers. With link flow control, packet framing and protocol layer overhead considered, a measured data transfer rate of 900 MB/s proves that very high throughput can be achieved for USB 3.1 applications.

“We have leveraged over 20 years of system, component, and IP design expertise to architect SuperSpeed USB Host and Device Controllers that perform to the high standards of our customers. This demonstration represents our commitment to being technology leaders and to helping our customers deliver first-to-market solutions with leading edge performance.” said Robert McVay CTO, Fresco Logic. “Just as with USB 3.0, we look forward to working closely with our partners and the USB ecosystem to enable the successful deployment of the USB 3.1 standard into the market.“