The USB Consortium has finalized the
specifications for the next evolution of the USB standard, fixing the
name as USB 3.1. The new standard will cap transfer speeds at 10Gbps,
and will be fully backward compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices,
albeit at their theoretical transfer rate caps.
The USB consortium consists of 712
members, including Intel, Microsoft and most of the popular laptop
manufacturers like HP and Dell.
The members seem fairly excited about
the new standard. “The USB 3.1 specification primarily extends existing
USB 3.0 protocol and hub operation for speed scaling along with defining
the next higher physical layer speed as 10 Gbps,” said Brad Saunders,
USB 3.0 Promoter Group Chairman. “The specification team worked hard to
make sure that the changes made to support higher speeds were limited
and remained consistent with existing USB 3.0 architecture to ease
product development.”
With USB 3.1 hard drives, theoretical transfer speeds will go up to as much as 10Gbps
“We recognize this advancement in USB
technology is an important development for our customers,” said Tom
Bonola, Chief Technology Officer, Business PC Solutions, HP. “The USB
3.1 Specification enables us to meet the growing needs of our customers
for faster data transfer while maintaining backwards compatibility with
existing devices.”
“The industry has affirmed the strong
demand for higher through-put, for user-connected peripherals and docks,
by coming together to produce a quality SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps
specification,” said Alex Peleg, Vice President, Intel Architecture
Group. “Intel is fully committed to deliver on this request.”
This bump up comes at a time when the
USB standard was facing competition from Apple’s Thunderbolt, though
those devices are still much expensive, but allow even for media
connectivity via that route.
Source: USB.org
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