History 2000: USB 2.0 Coming Soon

The new USB 2.0 external serial interface created considerable excitement when it was announced less than a year ago, with 60MB/s compared with the slow 1.5MB/s of USB 1.1, but it would have been surprising to see an immediate release, given the huge qualitative leap.

The scale of its potential market, however, has accelerated developments. At the Intel developer forum last February, which drew 300 attendees in Palm Springs, CA, Intel’s executives hinted at an introduction by the end of year 2000.

The event featured a demonstration of a USB 2.0 connection to a scanner using an interface device controller from Netchip Technology and a PC equipped with Intel’s prototype of a host controller emulator.

In-System Design also demonstrated a Zip drive featuring a USB 2.0 chip.

Stargate Solutions, meanwhile, presented the first 5K gates silicon-proyen core.

Final specs are supposed to be released in April by USB implementers forum.

USB 2.0 was first announced in August 1999, by a promotional group comprising Compaq, HP, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NEC and Philips, targeting a speed range between 360 and 480Mb/s. By October, they had agreed to the definitive figure of 480Mb/s.

Dataquest anticipates that 40% of all new PCs will support USB next year, increasing to 95% in 2003.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 146 on March 2000 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.