The next advancement for the USB specification, first announced in January, has been certified by the USB 3.0 Promoter Group. The new specification, to be called “USB 3.1,” will double current maximum bandwidth to 10Gbps while maintaining the backward-compatibility that USB is known for.
The USB 3.0 Promoter Group, which comprises representatives from HP, Intel, Microsoft, Renesas Electronics, ST-Ericsson, and Texas Instruments, made the announcement via press release (PDF) today.
SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps uses a more efficient data encoding and will deliver more than twice the effective data through-put performance of existing SuperSpeed USB over enhanced, fully backward compatible USB connectors and cables. Compatibility is assured with existing USB 3.0 software stacks and device class protocols as well as with existing 5 Gbps hubs and devices and USB 2.0 products.
The introduction of 10Gbps USB 3.1 comes just as Thunderbolt, a competing interface, is ready to adopt Thunderbolt 2, which will push bandwidth from 10Gbps to 20Gbps. The technologies are not directly comparable, however, as Thunderbolt provides dasiy-chaining support for up to 6 additional devices on a single port along with DisplayPort capabilities for natively supporting displays, while USB 3 is generally limited to storage devices and peripherals. Despite this disadvantage in capabilities, USB 3 currently holds a much higher adoption rate thanks to lower licensing and hardware implementation costs.
Thunderbolt 2 devices will begin to hit the market this fall but, while developers will be able to get a peek at USB 3.1 starting this month, there is currently no roadmap for the public release of devices utilizing the faster specification.
Once released, consumers will need USB 3.1 support on both ends of a transfer to see the improved bandwidth. Connecting a USB 3.1 external hard drive to a USB 3.0 computer (and vice versa) will work, but only at the current 5Gbps speed. In terms of cables, there will be new USB 3.1 certified cables but high quality existing USB 3.0 cables may also enable the faster data rate, according to the Promoter Group.
