New Controller from Cypress Gives USB 3.0 to Mobile Handhelds

Mobile handheld devices may not have access to the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard yet, but Cypress definitely wouldn't have that, hence its latest invention, the West Bridge Benicia (CYWB0263) peripheral controller.

The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface standard has reached the point where it is replacing the USB 2.0 technology on the mainstream, albeit slowly.

This is because the former sort of Universal Serial Bus has only just started to be natively supported on PC motherboards.

Of course, whether or not mainboards have USB 3.0 by default doesn't matter much for mobile devices other than laptops.

Cypress decided to provide such electronics with a controller chip that lets them stream multimedia content, like HD video, at up to 200 MB/s.

Another benefit is that battery charging time is practically halved, since the currents are increased to 900mA at most.

The product is named West Bridge Benicia (CYWB0263) and was released alongside the new USB OTG and USB 2.0 solution, also for mobile devices, named West Bridge Bay controller

Both support the SD 3.0 (SDXC with UHS-I) and e-MMC4.4x mass storage standards and the ES-Detect functionality (detects accessories without needed external power management).

“As the world leader in USB, we are pleased to be the first to bring USB 3.0 performance to the mobile landscape” said Dinesh Ramanathan, Executive Vice President of Cypress’s Data Communications Division.

“Our unique West Bridge architecture that doubles IOPS performance combined with the 5-Gbps speed of USB 3.0 will enable mobile devices to deliver a richer user experience with streaming HD video, super-fast sideloading and more. We’re already working with multiple top-tier phone and tablet manufacturers who have shown keen interest in this solution.”

Sample shipments are already being sent out but actual mass production will only commence in September, 2011, so these ARM9 core-based chips won't show up in actual consumer products until then.