• CES 2012 in review

    Every year, we bring some of our best and most innovative technologies to CES in Las Vegas, this year was the same.

    In the Consumer & Computing Interface space we had five live demos. 

    To start we highlighted the industry’s only end–to–end SuperSpeed USB 3.0 portfolio…

  • What's all the buzz about Thunderbolt?

    Other Parts Discussed in Post: SN75DP126

    The new Apple / Intel wired external interface, Thunderbolt, is all the "buzz" these days.  I am getting asked a lot of questions on how Thunderbolt is going to replace USB 3.0 as the main I/O of choice on PCs sooner rather than later.  Before I dive into the USB 3.0 versus Thunderbolt discussion, let’s take a quick review of what Thunderbolt really is.

    If…

  • Two SuperSpeed USB Announcements - Same Primary Message!

    On April 11th, 2011, both Texas Instruments and Cypress Semiconductor made announcements concerning upcoming SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) Products.  On the surface the two announcements are unrelated and in all honesty they really are totally unrelated.
     
    We at TI announced that our 4-port SuperSpeed USB Extensible Host Controller (xHCI), TUSB7340, is the first 4-port xHCI device that has been certified by the USB Implementers…
  • What does typical product certification look like?

    Hi, Dan Harmon back again with an overview of the certification process promised in my last post on (4 Mar 2011 12:01 AM).

    As I stated earlier, the certification process is a very important step for delivering quality products to the ultimate end-user, the consumer. So let's keep them in mind during this discussion. Since my focus is SuperSpeed USB, we'll base our example on the USB Implementer's Forum (USB-IF…

  • Why is a product certification process important?

    Hello, this is Dan Harmon back to you with my thoughts about something that I think is very important for all products that deal with industry standards, and that is: Product Certification.
     
    The first thing to understand about certification is why do we do it? Who really is intended to benefit from certifying that products are compliant to the USB Specification? The simple answer is the consumer … your mom, grandfather…
  • CES 2011 Observations

    Other Parts Discussed in Post: TUSB7340, TUSB8040, TUSB9261, TUSB1310A, SN65LVPE502

    Hi there everyone from Las Vegas and CES 2011.

    Thought I'd share a few of my observations from today.

    I thought I'd start with what was in the USB TechZone where I spent most of the day.  There are twenty exhibitors this year, half of which are either IC suppliers (eight of these) or chip IP suppliers.  There are also three cable…

  • Happy Holidays

    Wow another year has already passed me by – it seems like we were just celebrating New Years and looking forward to CES-2010 and here are already to Christmas 2010 and getting ready for CES 2011.

    I love this time of year as all the new "toys" get rolled out for Christmas and then instantly get overshadowed two weeks later by the even newer toys at CES.

    As we get ready for our SuperSpeed USB roll-out at…

  • SuperSpeed USB Applications, other than storage!

    Other Parts Discussed in Post: TUSB1310

    Well it has been a while, but I thought I would share some of what I have been talking with customers about over the last couple of months.

    Customers are really starting to look at using SuperSpeed USB for a wide variety of applications - in the last few weeks examples I have been hit with are data acquisition unit, a data logger, A/D converter, a camera, and image processing unit…

  • Intel Developer's Forum Fall-2010 Day 1 – Highlights & Observations

    Wow, I can not believe it has been over a month since I posted - time sure flies when you are traveling around the world like I have been!

    On to IDF Day 1.  The Keynotes given by Paul Ottellini (Intel CEO) & Dadi Perlmutter (Executive VP for Intel Architecture).

    My take-aways from Ottellini:

    • He called his keynote "The changing face of personal computing"
    • Much of the focus was on the opportunities for…
  • Texas Instruments expands Analog Production Capacity

    Normally I come on here and talk about the great things happening in the Consumer & Computing Interface realm - specifically SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0).  Today, I thought I talk about something great that TI has done for all of our customers.

    On July 14th, TI announcedthe that they had acquired two additional fabs from Spansionin Japan.  One fab is an operational 200mm fab which will initially produce data converters and…

  • What is the real throughput that you can expect over a SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) link?

    Other Parts Discussed in Post: TUSB7340, TUSB8040
     
    First, I wanted to tell everyone how exciting it was last week at the USB-IF Compliance workshop to see so many SuperSpeed USB end-products there for certification - it was a thing of beauty!  Of course there were silicon suppliers as well including us doing testing for our TUSB8040, SuperSpeed HUB, and TUSB7340, SuperSpeed Host controller.
     
    Now on to the topic of the…
  • SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) Market Update

    Dan Harmon here again,

    I thought today I would spend a couple of minutes just commenting on the amazing momentum that SuperSpeed USB has in the market place.

    Every day more products are being announced. From an end product standpoint they remain primarily notebook PCs and external HDDs and enclosures.

    From an enabling silicon standpoint, the majority of the IC suppliers are targeting the same end equipments referenced…

  • SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0): Much more than just a speed increase!

    Dan Harmon back to talk some more about SuperSpeed USB.

    Today I thought I would spend a little bit of time addressing the "other" benefits of SuperSpeed USB.

    Most of the press activity around the technology has focused on the raw speed increase to 5 Gbps from the 480 Mbps of USB 2.0 High–speed, a over 10x increase.  But this is really only one of the four key values that the SuperSpeed USB Promoters were…

  • Light Peak & SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0): Competition or Complimentary

    Dan Harmon back with you after a few weeks.

    Today I wanted to expand a little on a subject I previously touched on after IDF-Beijing - that being the competition that Light Peak is being portrayed as to SuperSpeed USB. 

    If you actually read the the above page on the Intel Research site concerning Light Peak, I think they state it pretty well when they say: "Light Peak also has the ability to run multiple protocols simultaneously…

  • SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0): Is 5 Gbps really needed?

    Back again, and I thought I'd talk about a topic that gets discussed a lot as I have been traveling around, visiting customers, and exhibiting at events concerning SuperSpeed USB:

    Does 5 Gbps really help since most media can not go that fast anyway?

    The short answer is, 5 Gbps is faster than most media is capable of! 

    The whole point of developing a new specification around data transfer is to eliminate the current…

  • Observations from IDF–Beijing

    Hi there all,

    Dan Harmon back from attending the Intel Developer's Forum held in Beijing last week on April 13 & 14, 2010.  TI was one of six exhibitors in the USB Community area of the Exhibit Showcase.  I think the numbers were down a bit since the Developer's Conference was just held two weeks earlier in Taipei and I think most companies focused on that event instead of this one - there were over 20 exhibitors…

  • Observations at the SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) DevCon in Taipei, April 1 & 2

    Other Parts Discussed in Post: TUSB8040

    Dan Harmon back with you fresh off a trip to Taipei to attend and exhibit at the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Developer's Conference held on April 1st & 2nd.

    Jeff Ravencraft, USB-IF President and Chairman kicked off the two day event in his typical dynamic fashion.  Some areas of emphasis during Jeff's talk incude
    - Device charging over USB is now a major consumer feature
    - 10+ billion…

  • SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) Market - When will it be real?

    Other Parts Discussed in Post: TUSB9260

    Dan Harmon back with you to discuss my favorite topic - SuperSpeed USB 3.0. 

    One of the big issues swirling around SuperSpeed USB today is WHEN?

    When will I be able to buy a PC that has USB 3.0?  When will products start appearing?  When can will silicon suppliers have product?

    The answer to all of these questions is NOW!

    If you were at CES or read any of the post-CES press, then…

  • What is SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0)?

    Hello and welcome to the new Texas Instruments Consumer & Computing Interface blog.

    My name is Dan Harmon and my role here at TI is as the Consumer & Computing Interface Marketing Manager.  In Consumer & Computing Interface, we deal with products that interface consumer and computer products with each other such as USB - both SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 - DisplayPort, PCI Express, IEEE-1394 (Firewire),…