Host controller handles SuperSpeed USB 3.0

NEC Electronics has launched the ?PD720200 USB host controller tailored for the new SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard.

The company expects rapid adoption of the device and standard as the need to transfer larger and larger amounts of information between PCs to external hard drives, portable electronic devices, and flash-based thumb drives continues to grow rapidly.

The ?PD720200 device is a host controller for PCs and other digital devices, and is based on the new version of the SuperSpeed USB standard, supporting the fastest USB transfer speeds of up to 5Gbit/s of data, which is 10x faster than previous USB 2.0 transfer speeds. The new device, as well as the standard, is fully backward compatible with USB 2.0, 1.1 and 1.0.

With its high-speed transfer capability, the ?PD720200 host controller makes it possible to expand the boundaries of digital appliances such as PCs, digital TVs and DVD recorders. The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 chip from NEC requires only 70 seconds to transfer 25Gbyte of video content on a Blu-ray Disc, compared to 14 minutes to transfer the same content when using the high-speed USB 2.0 with 480Mbit/s transfer capability.

Samples of the ?PD720200 are at $15 each and are scheduled to be available in June; production in September.

- Ismini Scouras
eeProductCenter