14 DAY TRIAL // With all the hype surrounding the USB 3.0 interface, it was only a matter of time before the 'standard' speed SuperSpeed storage units increased, and it appears that Renesas Electronics is ready to push the interface forward.
The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard is one that many flash drives, solid state drives, hard disk drives and optical disk drives have adopted, in addition to motherboards and notebooks, of course.
Granted, this did not really come as a surprise, considering that the data transfer rate, theoretically at least, can go as high as 5 Gbps, ten times what is possible on USB 2.0.
Granted, the technology has not yet matured, in a manner of speaking, so none of the above have actually come close to leveraging the true potential of the connection.
This is because, in the end, the performance depends on the host controller chips, like those from Renesas Electronics.
Speaking of the company, Renesas just announced that it has completed the µPD720201 and µPD720202.
They are said to be about 40% faster when it comes to writing data while consuming 90% less power than their predecessors when in low-power, idle mode (4.5 mW).
“In addition to contributing to faster data transfer processing in PCs and digital consumer electronics, Renesas Electronics' µPD720201 and µPD720202 host controllers help extend battery life by dramatically reducing the power consumption,”said Yukihiko Matsuda, Associate General Manager, Industry & Network Business Division, Renesas Electronics Corporation.
“As a core member of the USB-IF, we will continue to provide robust lineups of USB 3.0 products to accelerate the adoption of USB 3.0 in compact mobile devices.”
A final advantage of the newcomers is that they take up about half the space than current controllers do. Mass production is set for September and Intel LGA motherboards should be the first to use them.