USB 3.0, also known as SuperSpeed USB, has been on display at IDF and Fresco Logic has shown why it belongs there. They used an in-house developed software platform to test the performance of USB 3.0. The results are just breathtaking as they peaked just north of 350MB/s. The theoretical maximum of USB 2.0 is 60MB/s, which means that USB 3.0 will raise the bar by miles. There have been mentions of transfer rates up to 600MB/s (4800Mbps) and since USB 3.0 isn’t expected until next year, there is plenty of time for optimizations.
“Fresco Logic connected the platform, which is based on Xilinx Inc’s FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), with a PC through a PCI Express port. The FPGA realized Fresco Logic’s USB 3.0 host and device controller IP.”
Performance doesn’t seem to be an issue with USB 3.0 and as Intel recently released version 0.9 of the USB 3.0 specification things are looking up for other companies wanting to implement the standard.
