USB 3.0 Controller Production Hit Hard

It appears that, while most IT players are trying to make sure the Japan disaster affected them as little as possible, Renesas is one that ended up worse off than most, meaning that it will have trouble filling its role as supplier of USB 3.0 controllers.

Some AMD motherboards are already natively supporting the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard, but the need for USB 3.0 controller chips is as strong as ever.

So far, Japan-based Renesas has been the main supplier of such chips, meaning that it got quite a solid amount of revenues from all the sold platforms and storage units featuring this interface.

Of course, given the theoretical maximum speed of 5 Gbps (ten times that of USB 2.0), that the standard would evolve so well was not a surprise.

Unfortunately, it seems that fate was not the kindest to the company, as Renesas suffered fairly serious consequences from having several plants in the area affected by the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11.

As reported by Digitimes, companies based in Taiwan are now doing their best to have their controller ICs (integrated circuits) certified by the USB-IF (USB Implementers Forum).

ASMedia, Eltron and VIA are just three of those that have the equipment necessary to create USB 3.0 host controllers and might just get orders now that Renesas is in this situation.

Meanwhile, Fresco logic will have to deal with the unfortunate fact that it only makes single-port USB-IF-certified host controllers, meaning that it can't fill in for Renesas as far as dual-port controllers go.

It is the belief of analysts that notebook and motherboard makers are not exactly willing to start using uncertified ICs, as they want their machines to offer the reliability that brand names confer.

Moving forward, Renesas will most likely start to outsource production of its ICs, especially those built on the 28nm technology.

As such, if other makers of USB 3.0 controllers are to get any orders after all this, they will have to get USB-IF certification as quickly as possible.