I actually have to measure this myself, but the stated numbers from Sony’s website are

60 MB/s for the 8 GB drive and

120MB/s for the 16/32/64GB drives.

Our fastest USB 3.0 Flash drive in the lab is the Super Talent which runs at about 74 MB/s for the 16 GB version.

This makes the Sony Drive about 60% faster than the Super Talent.

Caveats to this after this table from Sony’s website below:

Caveats – The first and fastest USB 3.0 Flash Drive was actually a SuperTalent drive at 128GB.  It was a raid drive, so it had at least 2 banks of memory to allow for faster, reads from the drive. This wasn’t a mass market drive. It cost $600 for one drive.  The SuperTalent 16GB drive is $20.  The Sony will probably be in the same price range.

So for the moment, I’m guessing that the Sony Micro Vault will be the best performing USB 3.0 Flash Drive for consumers for awhile.  I’m also guessing it uses more expensive flash memory for faster access, it probably also uses a raid type configuration as well for faster performance for the larger capacities of 16GB and more.  I’m just guessing.

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Please.

Pretty Please.

Yes, it’s still Happy.

My understanding: The world won’t end in 2012.

Which is great because according to the Ismail Rahman, CTO of the USB-IF says, that Mobile Phones and Tablets will support USB 3.0 in 2012 (PC World USB 3.0 in Smart Phones and Tablets article) 

Smartphones and tablets will also recharge faster through USB 3.0, as the power will flow faster than in USB 2.0, says Rahman

This is because a USB 3.0 Host port will provide up to 900mA of power for charging, which is more than the 500mA supplied by USB 2.0.  So he’s correct.

One thing PC World asks/says/challenges Ismail on:

But transferring data using the current USB 3.0 technology at such high data rates requires more power, which does not fit the profile of mobile devices.

Ismail responds:

"It’s not the failure of USB per se, it’s just that in tablets they are not looking to put the biggest, fastest things inside a tablet," Ismail said.

He’s correct.  Another awesome response I might give is:

“Actually, USB 3.0 is more power efficient.  It transmits then shuts down.  USB 2.0 has a Host transmitting all the time with every device receiving signals all the time.

Also, at 10x the speed for only about 2x the power (in general) in means that a 10 minute transaction only 1 minute.  Then it turns off.  So it’s off for 9 minutes for USB 3.0 compared to USB 2.0.  So the power consumption is only 20% of USB 2.0.  So the battery lasts longer, about 5x longer just for the transfers…  USB 3.0 is better out of the box.”

There are some conditions, some secrets to the design at the system level to make sure this happen.  Basically, you need to be able to suspend the power to as much of the USB 3.0 elements as possible or shut down the power completely.

So Rahman points out USB 3.0 is coming to Tablets and Smart Phones in 2012, and theoretically he’s got some product knowledge as the CTO of the USB-IF.  I’m wondering if this is the TI OMAP 5 platform as announced by TI or something else?

USB at Home

You can install USB outlets at home for a mere $25.  Each port provides a full 1mA of charging which is good for charging your iPad or Kindle or Android phone, or BlackBerry or maybe your digital camera or cell phone. Got to FastMac.com for more info.   I know I could use them.

Today’s Donut Picture

I have a picture of a Tray of Donuts. I’m keeping it to myself.

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Please.

Pretty Please.

So it’s happened, the company the company that invested USB, and drove USB 2.0 and now USB 3.0 to success has certified their own USB 3.0 Host Controllers.  The USB-IF announcement image (and hyperlink) is below.

It looks like the Series 7 chips set goes into standard PCs that you and I will buy, so mostly laptops and desktops.  The C216 series appears to be for servers.

A link to the press release is here: http://www.usb.org/press/USB-IF_PantherPoint_FINAL.pdf.

AMD’s Certified PC Chipset – Where is it?

This follows AMD’s press release from back in April 2011 of a certified chipset.  We haven’t seen either in mass production, but we might guess that both will time their releases to coincide with wide scale Windows support.

Windows 8 with USB 3.0

Combined with the Microsoft Windows 8 announcement and demonstration of USB 3.0, Intel’s announcement means we are on the path to 1 Billions USB 3.0 enabled products in 2 years as consumers look to attach something to these speedy SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports.

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Because you read this blog, you already know that DisplayLink has taped-out a chip and started a second chip from our press release in October 2011.

DisplayLink makes a USB 3.0 to HDMI or DVI converter.

If you clicked on that image above, and nothing happened, it’s because it’s not a hyperlink, it’s just a picture.

The Video is below.

Here’s DisplayLink’s Theo Goguely talking about their product using the Synopsys USB 3.0 Device IP, USB 3.0 PHY IP, and HDMI Tx IP.

Here’s the 2 products that DisplayLink’s Theo Goguely demonstrated.

DisplayLink customer product #1: The IOData USB 3.0 to HDMI/DVI adapter using the DisplayLink chip.  Shown below.

DisplayLink customer product #2: And the Targus USB 3.0 Docking Station which you can buy at Office Depot, or just Google “Targus USB 3.0 Docking Station”

This Docking station includes a USB 3.0 Hub, and the DisplayLink chip downstream to provide the 2 video outputs.

In addition, DisplayLink customer product #3: The HIS USB 3.0 to HDMI adapter Here’s a 3rd USB 3.0 product that I found on the DisplayLink website.

Here’s where you can buy the HIS USB 3.0 to HDMI video adapter on NewEgg

And today’s Pastry selection

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Words will never hurt me.

Unless they are mean words.

HP’s all in one TouchSmart 520 PC has 2 USB 3.0 Ports included in a beautiful, single unit touchscreen PC.

It has a BluRay burner, which is pretty cool too.  So HP beats Apple in features here. Read the PCWorld Review article here.

ADATA now waterproofed USB drives, so you can carry these around when you go scuba diving or stir your coffee with them.

You should note that the top speeds of these USB 3.0 drivers is 100 MB per second.

Top USB 2.0 speeds are 35 MB per second. Top USB 3.0 speeds are 350MB per second.

The ADATA speed is still 3x the speed of USB 2.0 which is definitely faster.  The speed limiting factor is actually the flash memory. It uses memory more expensive than memory found in today’s USB 2.0 drives, but still slower than needed to get the fastest USB 3.0 speeds.  Just keep this in mind.

The Kindle & USB – Viewer Mail

Ned writes in “"Interesting blog about the Kindle Fire and iPad.  I can’t, however, figure out what it has to do with USB…”

(Ned isn’t his real name.)

I’m glad you asked this question Ned.

This Tablet, the Kindle has only one wired interface, it’s USB 2.0.  It’s used for both charging and for content transfer.

For example, If you keep your music in the “Amazon Cloud” you can download via WiFi.

But, most people (I think) already have their entire MP3 library on a USB hard drive or a PC or both somewhere.

So it’s a lot faster to plug your Kindle Fire into a laptop or PC, and transfer all your Britney Spears and Rihanna music to your device.

You could upload your music to the Amazon Cloud, or even the Apple iCloud.  You’d then have access anywhere. And you could stream to your device.

Of course you need Wi-Fi or Broadband access to download these items.  So you still want to download with USB 2.0.

Why do you care?

Well, you’ll still need to charge your device now and in 2014.

And you’ll have even more content.

And you might not be willing to pay for a huge “cloud” to store all your data.

Are you going to trust all your kid’s photos to a single, on-line storage facility at Amazon or Apple?

Will you pay $500 a year for the storage, when a USB 3.0 drive costs only $100?

No.

You buy 2 USB 3.0 hard drives. You store your stuff there, and keep a small amount on the cloud.

So you will have USB 2.0 now and USB 3.0 soon on all your tablets and smart phones so you can keep carrying around a gazillion videos you recorded, pictures you took, and movies/TV shows you want to watch.

Kindle Fire TechRepublic Teardown

Here’s a picture from the TechRepublic teardown of the Kindle Fire.

It’s interesting to me because the RAM chip is mounted directly on top of the TI OMAP 4430 chip underneath.  As a digital guy I don’t know why someone does this, except to improve performance, and maybe lower power required.  Someone send me an e-mail to explain why or post a comment below.

You will see the TI OMAP 4430 actually appears to have 2 USB controllers.

One is an HSOTG port on the top right.

The other is in the bottom left, and looks like a USB 2.0 Host controller.

The new OMAP 5 platform as has 1 USB DRD port and 3 USB 3.0 ports. Block diagram and description can be seen here in my earlier blog entry on OMAP 5 and Tablets.

So TI’s already moving the next platform onto USB 3.0, so in 2 years we would see TI OMAP tablets with USB 3.0.

Donut

Post your questions in the comments below (or send me e-mails)

And here’s today’s Donut.

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Eric’s Kindle Fire

I opened my Kindle Fire today (upon returning from Asia).
I’m pleased but underwhelmed.

First Impressions:

1) Great Screen
2) Heavier than Kindle 3rd Generation, much heavier than iPod
3) Fast Browsing
4) Interface as responsive as the iPad
5) I have no content (except for lots of books with talking animals in those books).

But, I can stream video from Amazon Prime, so that is a bonus. I can now cancel my Netflix account completely after 4 years, despite a tiny selection of streaming videos.

I can also borrow 1 book a month from Amazon’s lending library as long as I pay for Amazon Prime.

Still it isn’t an iPad, or an iPod or an iPhone.

For $200 it’s a great deal for anyone looking for a tablet for e-mail and light surfing and buying lots of stuff on Amazon.

It has a larger screen than the iPod at $200, but you won’t go running with a Kindle Fire strapped to your arm either. 

One thing the Kindle Fire does not do is Text-To-Speech.  So, I guess Amazon doesn’t really love me. (Yes I’m still mining original Kindle review because it’s the one people have most commented on or e-mailed me about.) You can read how free donuts go together with Kindles here.

Formatting blogs – We switched our website around. We were continually getting hacked.  I have no idea why anyone would hack my lousy blog.  So the formatting on this might really be bad.  If so, I apologize, and applaud your efforts as you read down this page.

International Flights – Kindles and iPads

I noticed lots and lots of people with either Kindles or iPads.  I noticed more people reading on their iPads than I normally do.

I sat next a some poor CEO who got stuck in a middle seat in economy with people like me sitting on the aisle.  She said, "This is going to sound stupid, but I mostly read on my iPad." "I don’t play games," she said.

So I guess the KindleFire gets the Amazon crowd to upgrade to a color screen (and staying up  all night reading because of the active light source keeping their brains awake).

Amazon also grabs the people that stood outside HP (next door to us) to get a TouchPad who actually didn’t stand outside, but want a supported product.

My point is: Apparently, a lot of people read, and they like to read, but this Tablet extends the reach to other people who don’t read, but want a nifty, cheap tablet. (It’s possible that reading and wanting a nifty tablet are not mutually exclusive as well)

Yes, I know, if you’ve followed the Kindle Fire launch at all this isn’t new.  I have to say, I’m a bit underwhelmed at the moment, but after I transfer some legal video content from my Tivo to my Kindle Fire, I might feel better.

(Late Note: I found that I have a digital copy of “The Dark Knight” in the Amazon Cloud, so I’m listening to that while I finish this entry. In just 5 seconds it had enough downloaded to start playing the movie).

The thing that I like about the iPad 2, is that when I buy a video or app, it automatically downloads to my desktop, and I can sync the content with all my other devices quickly.  I can’t do that with my Kindle, and I’m not planning on re-buying content, so I might end up buying another iPad rather than 2 more Kindles.  I don’t know yet.

40+ Designs, 30+ Customers for USB 3.0 digital IP and PHYs

I’m really proud of our R&D and Support teams who built and supported tape-outs of real products in real chips at real customers like DisplayLink and Realtek.

I should point out the 40+ design wins are for actual ASICs that have already started, or have finished, and not just FPGA prototypes.  Corporate strictly regulates formal announcements, so we provide the most accurate data we have. We count real USB 3.0 products.

Here’s a video from DisplayLink explaining why they buy IP from suppliers that have lots of customers.

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I’m still trying to figure out how you subscribe your enemies automatically. I think that might be considered bad, but they are your enemies, so why do you care?

I’M HITTING “PUBLISH” NOW AND HOPING THIS GETS TO THE INTERNET.

Eric’s Kindle Fire

I opened my Kindle Fire today (upon returning from Asia).
I’m pleased but underwhelmed.

First Impressions:

1) Great Screen
2) Heavier than Kindle 3rd Generation, much heavier than iPod
3) Fast Browsing
4) Interface as responsive as the iPad
5) I have no content (except for lots of books with talking animals in those books).

But, I can stream video from Amazon Prime, so that is a bonus. I can now cancel my Netflix account completely after 4 years, despite a tiny selection of streaming videos.

I can also borrow 1 book a month from Amazon’s lending library as long as I pay for Amazon Prime.

Still it isn’t an iPad, or an iPod or an iPhone.

For $200 it’s a great deal for anyone looking for a tablet for e-mail and light surfing and buying lots of stuff on Amazon.

It has a larger screen than the iPod at $200, but you won’t go running with a Kindle Fire strapped to your arm either. 

One thing the Kindle Fire does not do is Text-To-Speech.  So, I guess Amazon doesn’t really love me. (Yes I’m still mining original Kindle review because it’s the one people have most commented on or e-mailed me about.) You can read how free donuts go together with Kindles here.

Formatting blogs – We switched our website around. We were continually getting hacked.  I have no idea why anyone would hack my lousy blog.  So the formatting on this might really be bad.  If so, I apologize, and applaud your efforts as you read down this page.

International Flights – Kindles and iPads

I noticed lots and lots of people with either Kindles or iPads.  I noticed more people reading on their iPads than I normally do.

I sat next a some poor CEO who got stuck in a middle seat in economy with people like me sitting on the aisle.  She said, "This is going to sound stupid, but I mostly read on my iPad." "I don’t play games," she said.

So I guess the KindleFire gets the Amazon crowd to upgrade to a color screen (and staying up  all night reading because of the active light source keeping their brains awake).

Amazon also grabs the people that stood outside HP (next door to us) to get a TouchPad who actually didn’t stand outside, but want a supported product.

My point is: Apparently, a lot of people read, and they like to read, but this Tablet extends the reach to other people who don’t read, but want a nifty, cheap tablet. (It’s possible that reading and wanting a nifty tablet are not mutually exclusive as well)

Yes, I know, if you’ve followed the Kindle Fire launch at all this isn’t new.  I have to say, I’m a bit underwhelmed at the moment, but after I transfer some legal video content from my Tivo to my Kindle Fire, I might feel better.

(Late Note: I found that I have a digital copy of “The Dark Knight” in the Amazon Cloud, so I’m listening to that while I finish this entry. In just 5 seconds it had enough downloaded to start playing the movie).

The thing that I like about the iPad 2, is that when I buy a video or app, it automatically downloads to my desktop, and I can sync the content with all my other devices quickly.  I can’t do that with my Kindle, and I’m not planning on re-buying content, so I might end up buying another iPad rather than 2 more Kindles.  I don’t know yet.

40+ Designs, 30+ Customers for USB 3.0 digital IP and PHYs

I’m really proud of our R&D and Support teams who built and supported tape-outs of real products in real chips at real customers like DisplayLink and Realtek.

I should point out the 40+ design wins are for actual ASICs that have already started, or have finished, and not just FPGA prototypes.  Corporate strictly regulates formal announcements, so we provide the most accurate data we have. We count real USB 3.0 products.

Here’s a video from DisplayLink explaining why they buy IP from suppliers that have lots of customers.

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In USB, a Bulk Transfers refers to a transfer of data that must be 100% accurate when it arrives. No errors can be allowed.  For example, if you are copying pictures from your camera to your computer, you want every color pixel to be 100% accurate.  The same is true for printing a picture.

It also means the data does not need to arrive at a certain time.  If an error occurs in a Bulk transmission, the system retries until the data accurately moves to the destination. 

BOT is highly reliable, but the hard drive companies knew that with USB 3.0 a new method would be needed.  BOT basically sends a single packet at a time.  This works well for USB 2.0.

USB 3.0 lets you send packets along multiple USB 3.0 “streams.”  To take advantage of this, Storage companies created a new USB Driver Class, a purely software feature, to enable faster USB transfers on USB 3.0. called “USB Attached SCSI Protocol” or “UASP.”  UASP allows you to send packets along multiple streams in parallel, and even burst the data faster.

ASUS published a web page that does a fantastic job illustrating how UASP works with an animation sequence. I recommend you click on the image ASUS website below and take a look at it.

I should point out you need a hard drive or SSD that supports UASP inside the hard drive’s firmware to support this.

In the USB community, we’ve actually debated the usefulness of UASP.  In our lab, we performance increases of 6-10% for early applications.

In a test of the ASUS motherboard with a UASP enabled ASMedia Hard Drive, shows a speed bump of about 33-37Megabytes per second going from about 261 to 293 Megabytes per second, or about a 13% increase in speed.

Today, mass market hard drives today won’t deliver data fast enough because they use SATA 3 Gb/s instead of the faster 6Gb/s. Most hard drives bridge from SATA to USB 3.0.  Since USB 3.0 has a maximum effective throughput of about 4Gb/s, this is faster than existing SATA 3/Gb/s drives.  SATA can be limiting.  Within 2 years, this will change because hard drives will have either SATA 6Gb/s support, or native USB 3.0 support so SATA will not be the bottleneck.

Note:
   3 Gigabits/second = 3Gb/s = 300 MB/s = 300 Megabytes/second
   4 Gb/s = 400 MB/s
   6 Gb/s = 600 MB/s

If you are building a USB 3.0 product today, it means you will deploy in about 12-18 months which means you should plan for UASP support or at least investigate UASP for your application.

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The blue dot on the right is where you waive your cell phone.  In Japan the primary Near Field Communications (NFC) appears to be Felica for Felicity Card.  After reading the Wikipedia entry on FeLica I was surprised to discover it’s the de facto standard in Japan and used pretty much in every part of the world also

I couldn’t find anything on-line on the system in this Japanese cab, but I’m curious to know if it is the same or different than the TI OMAP technology, or if the OMAP platform uses FeLica or some other technology. 

I found another technology called Kazzam where you could pay using an App on your iPhone.  It seems cumbersome since you have to type in the cab number and such, which to me seems harder than just swiping your phone across a blue dot.  Maybe it would work combined with FeLica so you could swipe, get the info in and just press approve.

SmartPhone Based Alternatives – Cheaper, but harder to use

But Kazzam or any App based system is a lot easier to deploy since it requires only existing Smart Phones (no special hardware in the cab or on the phone.  You just put a Smart Phone in the Cab Driver’s hand to get an acknowledgement that the person has paid. It would probably even work with a standard cell phone with a text message that says, “The person in the back seat with the iPhone 7 has just paid so you can unlock the back doors and let them out”

Back to Japan

I love the Suica card system in Japan. You add cash to a card that uses FeLica, and you just swipe the card over a reader at the gate entrance to the train station. 

And, you can use it to buy food at train station food places and convenience stores.  It is also built into some cell phones as shown below, but most people in Japan will simply put the Suica in their wallet, or inside their cell phone case, so they don’t need to buy the cell phone with the Suica tech built into the phone.

I’m sure this exists elsewhere in the world, I just don’t get to see it.  In China, I just buy single trip tickets to ride in trains that were built in Japan.

Smartphones drive the need for USB 3.0 in digital cameras and digital video cameras to

From the Apple event Monday

“We’re now on to the camera in the iPhone 4S. “We set our sights on competing with the best point-and-shoot cameras,” Mr. Schiller says. The camera has an 8-megapixel sensor, 60 percent more pixels than the iPhone 4’s camera. It has a backside-illuminated CMOS sensor that captures 73 percent more light. It’s 33 percent faster.” 

                                       – At Apple meeting per NYTimes Blog linked below

This means:

1) Smartphone you buy from Apple (and soon Google and RIM) pretty much can replace mid-range digital cameras.

2) Anyone in the middle to upper income range, every teenager, now doesn’t need to buy a separate digital camera (they probably seldom do anyways)

3) Enthusiasts who like great pictures, have a better mobile phone camera, and don’t need to buy a separate camera.

4) Camera makers had better add features like embedded memory, and USB 3.0 to make their cameras and video cameras viable

Digital Video Camera makers already have lots of storage inside the camera, and usually an SD card slot.  DVCs need USB 3.0 now.

DSCs should follow quickly, if you don’t move now, you will lose to those moving already.

Here links to Live Blog coverage of the Apple Event at the Wired Blog and  the NYTimes Blog and the Wired Blog

Thanks to Steve Jobs

I’m tremendously grateful to Steve Jobs for his drive, his creativity, his tenacity that really pushed everyone to Think Different. 

The Tech World remade itself multiple times in his lifetime directly due to his influence, effectively creating new realms of creativity, competitiveness, entertainment and utility.

Many Thanks Mr. Jobs.

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An excellent question.

Let’s start with this: 

When will PCs have USB 3.0?

In April this year, AMD and the Innovator that invented USB announced USB 3.0 will ship in 2012.

When will Microsoft support USB 3.0?

In the past 5 weeks, Microsoft announced Windows 8 support of USB 3.0 and demonstrated USB 3.0 publically.

When will consumers demand USB 3.0?

Two weeks ago, during IDF 2011, the USB-IF presented InStat Data showing more than 1 Billion USB 3.0 enabled will ship in the next 2 years. 

To me this means if you are making anything with storage in it, a smart phone, a tablet, a camera, a video camera, a media player, it should have a USB 3.0 connection on it by 2014.

"In-Stat expects several hundred million USB 3.0-enabled devices will ship in 2012, including a large share of tablets, mobile and desktop PCs, external hard drives and flash drives," said Brian O’Rourke, research director at In-Stat. "By 2014, we expect many consumer electronics devices to transition to USB 3.0, including digital cameras, mobile phones and digital televisions. Overall, in 2014, we forecast that 1.4 billion USB 3.0 devices will ship. IP suppliers like Synopsys will help fuel this explosion in USB 3.0 adoption." – From our Press Release – Linked below

How long does it take for a product with our USB IP on it (or any IP) take to get to products on shelves?  About 2 years.

It seems to me that marketing people, should have an inner voice saying:

“PCs will have it.

Microsoft will support it

1 Billion products by 2013,

It takes me 2 years to get a product onto shelves,

I should really start on USB 3.0 now…”

– Inner voice, sounds like Spock, you know the logical one from Star Trek

Why do 40 design wins matter?

It matters because our customers use and test our IP in FPGAs and chips everyday in many ways.

It matters because when you choose USB 3.0 IP, host or device, you know that brave pioneers like Realtek and DisplayLink went first, taped-out, and are shipping chips in mass production. Realtek said,

"We taped-out Synopsys’ DesignWare USB 3.0 host and USB 3.0 device in three chips targeted at the digital home and PC peripheral markets, and all are now shipping in mass production," said Jessy Chen, executive vice president of Realtek Semiconductor Corporation. "We chose Synopsys DesignWare IP because of the company’s excellent track record in USB 2.0. With Synopsys’ USB 3.0 IP now fully certified and proven in our chips, we are certain we picked the right IP partner. We have been at the forefront of USB 3.0 development and integration, and have many innovative chips using Synopsys USB 3.0 IP coming in 2012." From our Press Release – Linked below

Why do 30 customers matter?

Customers use and reuse. These are companies that will take market share (maybe yours) because they have USB 3.0. DisplayLink said,

"Working with Synopsys for our USB 3.0 controller, HDMI controller and PHY IP helped us mitigate our project risk and reach volume production with our first-pass silicon," said Jonathan Jeacocke, vice president of engineering at DisplayLink. "In addition, we used Synopsys’ HAPS® FPGA-based prototyping solution to build fully functional systems for at-speed testing of USB 3.0 and HDMI, including architecture validation, performance testing, software development and customer demonstrations. We’ve already started our next design with Synopsys’ IP." From our Press Release – Linked below

Here’s the Press Release with the Quotes from InStat, Realtek, and DisplayLink.

Think about where your products need to be in 2 years. 

Keep your products on track for 2014.

It’s time to move now to USB 3.0.

I recommend Synopsys.  (I could be biased)

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By changing over to USB as the standard connector, this will eliminate the need to build and eventually destroy or dispose billions of non-USB chargers.

Eventually you will buy a phone, and the power adapter won’t be included because you’ll already have one.

Pretty cool

Here’s the videos talking about it

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Windows 8 from a USB 3.0 Flash Drive

At the Build Conference, Microsoft  introduced something called “Windows To Go” 

This lets you boot Windows 8 on a USB Flash Drive, so you no longer have to carry around a whole computer.  You could carry around USB Flash Drive that has your entire Windows 8 workspace, software, music files, browser bookmarks, Work files, and other elements.

So you could have a Computer at Work and a Computer at Home, and you would just carry the USB drive back an forth.  You wouldn’t need to contaminate your home computer with work materials.

So how does this work?

• You reset your BIOS to boot from USB
  • BIOS is the firmware/software that starts up your computer before the Windows operating system starts
• Plug in your USB Drive
• Start up your PC
• Windows 8 will load from your USB flash drive
• All your software/applications will be available
• Files will be stored either on a Windows Live SkyDrive (Windows Cloud I’m guessing this is)
• When you shutdown, you take everything with you on your drive.

This works with USB 2.0 okay, but it will work better on USB 3.0. It will boot faster.

Win 8 demo on a MacBook

Here’s a demonstration of Windows 8 using Windows To Go on a MacBook run by ExtremeTech

Better on USB 3.0

The Microsoft Speaker at the //Build conference said that the USB experience will be “much enhanced” with USB 3.0.

To me this means it will boot faster and run faster, more like an SSD inside your PC if you have both a USB 3.0 Flash Drive and fast flash memory.  The free USB memory sticks you get today, the cheap ones you get at Target, FNAC, Metro, NOVA, BestBuy, Gome, or Yodobashi Camera.  You need to buy the more expensive drives. 

If you watch the video below, and advance to 27:00 (27 minutes) then you can see what happens when you unplug the USB drive while running Windows off of it. Basically, the PC will give you 60 seconds to re-insert the drive and resume, or it will shut down. You will see that Win 8 resumes cleanly, resuming a video playback, if you re-insert the drive within 60 seconds.

Here are some tips to view the video, in the lower right corner, click “Format”, then choose “Smooth Streaming”, then advance to the time slot of 0:27:00 for the Windows To Go Flash Drive removal and re-insertion.

The Windows USB 3.0 Logo Program has an additional requirement for a USB Windows To Go Drive
It will require that a USB drive can withstand many,many Win 8 file accesses over a 2 year lifetime.  This means it needs to be able to have Win 8 running on the drive and constantly being accessed over time. USB 3.0 Logo Program requirements are discussed at 28:50. on the video above.

For an even better article on the Windows To Go feature running on a USB 3.0 Flash Drive, you can go read the ExtremeTech article here.

Next Week: (Maybe) Pictures of Thunderbolt products.  (Definitely) How USB will save the earth from it’s doom.

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It appears that Thunderbolt will remain a chip solution and the Innovator that created Thunderbolt will bring out cheaper chips according to Ars Technica.  Also, PC makers like ASUS and Acer may bring out Ultrabooks supporting Thunderbolt. I should point out that Ultrabooks are equivalent to MacBook Air and are more expensive than standard laptops by 50-70% or more.

This also looks to me like Thunderbolt will not be made available for SoC integration.

This means product makers can’t build their own IP (and IP providers like Synopsys can’t build it either) to bring costs down. 

This means Thunderbolt PCs and Peripherals will have an additional ~$25 (my marketing estimate) added to their selling price. This doesn’t mean a lot to people buying 30 inch Apple Cinema displays, but people buying portable hard drives tend to try to keep their purchases in the range of $100.

I truly believe that USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt complement each other. I’m going back to an blog entry I wrote in February “Thunderbolt vs. USB 3.0”

Jason Ziller leads the strategic planning and marketing behind Thunderbolt.  He also launched USB 2.0 about 13 years ago.  Ziller talked to PC Magazine.

“Ziller, who was once chairman of the USB Implementor’s Forum, said that USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt were "complementary". "We don’t see this replacing USB," he said. ‘We see it as complementary to USB… Intel will fully support and work with that technology." See the PCMag.com article here.

(Apologies to Jason, there’s a typo in his last name in the original article in February)

Go back and look at that article on “Thunderbolt vs. USB 3.0”  and read “How about some facts about why Thunderbolt will not pass up USB 3.0?” for all the reasons why USB 3.0 will succeed now.

Thunderbolt will succeed in the near term for high end applications by users that can absorb the cost for storage devices. In the long term, docking stations and docking stations in monitors will drive mass adoption. (Pictures of current devices tomorrow).

As Windows 8 launches with USB 3.0 and the chipset makers launch with chipset support, we can be assured USB 3.0 will succeed with over 1 billion devices to be shipped in the next 2 years.

Thunderbolt and the Self Serving Marketing Guy

Yes, this is self serving, but I’m PMM of the USB 3.0 digital cores so what did you expect?

It doesn’t make me less right.

I like to be right once each month. We are already halfway through the month. So this could be it for me.

I’m now including lots of Hyperlinks back to my articles to:

1. Increase my hits, so click away,
2. Show some diligence, back up my wild claims
3. Make it easier for you to find your way back to my articles, and the original sources on the internet without repeating everything over and over and over.  Let’s face it, no one wants to hear the sound of my voice that much.

I’m really regretting looking at those entries since I’ve finding lots of typos.

Thanks to those people that send me personal e-mails on my Kindle Review Blog Entry and Donuts.

This week: Pictures of ThunderBolt, Booting from a USB Drive with Windows To Go, and new USB Standards

Despite the fact that you know me, please

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During the USB 3.0 session at IDF 2011, Jeff Ravencraft pointed out that in the next 2 years, over 1 billion USB 3.0 enabled products will be shipped. For a second I thought about it, and then I realized “Yes, that’s true.”

So I pulled up the InStat data from the Microsoft Blog site that shows exactly this data.  The Green Bar below is USB 3.0 shipments.

Here’s a link to my Blog entry, you can find a link to the Microsoft Blog entry ther.

My Funny, My Friends

I sent my friend the following note with a link to “My Kindle, My Donut” article as follows:

“When you get a chance, take a look at my latest blog entry:

http://synopsysoc.org/tousbornottousb/2011/09/digital-downloads-donuts-free-donuts-or-how-the-kindle-made-me-fatter/

I know you wait eagerly to read it each week.   I would like your opinion as follows:

1) Is it funny only if you know me?

2) Is it funny on its own?

3) Is it not funny.”

My Friend responded:

“I know you and I still think it’s funny”

Some needs to explain to me what this means.

Windows 8 support for USB 3.0 – Keynote Demonstration

Following up in the Microsoft Blog Announcement of Win 8 support for USB 3.0, Steven Sinofsky gave the first USB 3.0 demonstration on Windows 8.  It is a 2 hour video, so don’t watch it now.

To see the 20 second demo, here are some tips to view the video, in the lower right corner, click “Format”, then choose “Smooth Streaming”, then advance to the time slot of 1:13:05 for the on stage demonstration of USB 3.0

The demo is quick, as it should be, and easy to miss.  It’s like the expectation that USB 3.0 be quick and easy.

Microsoft demonstrates Windows 8 on range of devices including TI OMAP and Atom based tablets, so we can guess this means we will see USB 3.0 support beyond the PC. 

This is a good sign for USB 3.0

I eat the tops off 2 chocolate donuts, then throw away the bottoms.  It’s my way of “Cutting back”

I will come back to the donuts in just a moment.

My Kindle, My Son

I received my Kindle yesterday at  6:42pm. I handed it my son, and left for a 2 hour meeting.

When I came back at 8:17pm, he was reading it.

My son informed me, “The 3G is fine, I can buy books that way.”

Apparently he had bought some while I was away.

- The Kindle allows you to buy books over 3G “forever” without WiFi.

I spent 2 min setting up the WiFi, 5 min finding books with my son.  We found 3 Mark Twain books, and 2 books on King Arthur that were free.

It turns out that lots of books, classic books are available for free on the Internet in PDF or for the Kindle, Nook, any eReader…  Totally free.

(Also plenty of romance novels also).

I had to tear the Kindle out of my son’s hands at 10:12pm.

My Kindle, My Mom

When I was small, my mom read to me every night.

I’m sure if your mom loved you she would have read to you.

Well, it turns out the Kindle can now replace your Mom.  It will read to you out loud.

It’s not awesome, not like a voice actor or radio or HAL from 2001, but it’s okay. 

Video demonstration at the end of this blog (read the rest of my blog first, please)

My Kindle and USB

I charged my Kindle via USB to my computer. The Kindle shows up as a Mass Storage device, like a flash drive.

My Kindle, My Donuts

So as I walked by the donuts this morning I thought:

”If I eat enough of these donuts, I don’t need to eat lunch and I can save my money to buy more books to read on my Kindle”

My Thanks

To my Readers, Readership was way up for August, a tough month since Europe and Japan are on vacation, so that made it exceptional.

Given the amount of time I spend on this each week, (Yes, hard to believe) your readership is important to me.

There are thousands of you (yes, also hard to believe) so keep forwarding to your friends and enemies.

Thanks to my mom for reading to me. I’m sure your mom loved you too, even if she didn’t read to you.

And thanks to Preston Hunt for encouraging me on the Kindle. 

I’m definitely buying at least 1 more for My Son

Who I love but don’t read to.

That’s what his Kindle is for…

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Demonstration of the Video Text to Speech on YouTube

Microsoft hasn’t announced a Windows 8 availability date, but we know from IDF Beijing that the PC Chipset makers will release USB 3.0 support in 2012.  So we can speculate that Windows 8 and these PC Chipsets will ship at the same time.  Links to the IDF Beijing reports that April Blog entry.

Interestingly, Microsoft uses a combination of a virtual approach and hardware testing.

The Virtual Approach looks similar to our Virtual Platforms.

The ASSP looks like a flash/thumb drive.  It has a USB 3.0 Device Chip in it.  It basically exercises many different USB transfer types varying parameters like packet sizes.  You can see the Microsoft USB Test Tool (MUTT) with it’s creator David Hargrove.  If I can find purchasing info, I’ll post it below.

David Hargrove and Microsoft USB Test Tool – Picture from Microsoft Blog Site

USB 3.0 Host Chip ASPs

I made an error in the graph and pricing in the last entry (yesterday).  My apologies.

In fact, the January time frame I reported that while Digitimes had some source saying prices would drop to $1.70-$1.80, in fact Host ASPs remained up around $2.35 per chip.

What Digitimes is saying is that prices will drop to $1.20 next year, but now Renesas/NEC have prices up at about $2.00 per chip while ASMedia is down at about $1.50 per chip.

“Renesas reportedly has notified its partners that it plans to lower prices for its 2-port controller chips to below US$1.20 from about US$2 currently. Comparable 2-port chips from ASMedia are currently available at US$1.50-1.70.” DigiTimes August, 19, 2011

I’ve corrected the graph here.

So I’ve lost any credibility I had in the community, so clearly you want to subscribe.

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So if you followed my other blogs, you can see how the ASP of a USB 3.0 Host Chip has dropped.

Now I should point out, that these are ASPs across the board.  Some of these Host chips may be of differing quality.  Certainly the drivers are of differing quality as well.

The real reason that prices may drop in early 2012 is that the PC chip sets should arrive in early 2012.  So these discrete chips will be competing against high end chipsets that include USB 3.0 for “free”  In fact, the aftermarket will exist for a very long time for USB 3.0.

For Laptop PCs, I actually believe, with iPads and Tablets, even Notebook PCs will upgrade less frequently.  Hard drive capacities will continue to grow, and people will still want add-on cards for those laptops. 

For desktops, if you have the raw processing power, you still want to backup your 3 TB or drives onto an external USB 3.0 drive, and you need an add-on for that because you don’t buy a new machine that often for your desktop. It never moves, and it just serves up content, pictures, videos for your whole house.

In both cases, you buy an add-on card for probably 10-20 dollars next year, and buy the latest hard drives.

And the next laptop you buy, will probably have USB 3.0. At least that is why my Dad is waiting.

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We did this demonstration at IDF last fall, and you will see the performance is much faster that all of the published performance by, well pretty much everyone even now, 11 months later.

We optimized the controller, and the PHY, and the drivers to achieve these speeds.

You will notice that our USB 3.0 xHCI Host & PHY running MCCI’s Win 7 drivers and and the USB 3.0 Device & PHY have no problem achieving these speeds.

The HAPS boards with our controller design in FPGA also easily supports USB 3.0.  We use our PCIe controller to connect to the PCIe on the PCs so there is no latency introduced there. 

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I’m looking for good books, that NEVER go on sale in the digital world (as far as I can tell).  So I’m paying full price.  Maybe $7.99 or $9.99 or $12.99 (USD).  This seems crazy since I can get used paperbacks shipped to me for about $5.

So I look around and I find lots of 0.99 books.  Yes, $1 books. Self-publishers now can write anything they want, and publish it on Amazon.  You will find that some of them are poorly edited with spelling mistakes or repeated words, or something spell-check didn’t quite get right.

iPad, iPod Frustrations

Okay, so the big frustration I have with the iPad / iPod is this:

There isn’t enough memory in my iPad (and iPod)

Yes, I bought the 64GB version

Yes, it fits all my music. But after the Music I have:

1. 3 (legal) movies
2. 12 (legal) episodes of TV shows
3. 50 Apps
4. about 400 photos
5. I have no more space.

   I would pay extra for 128 GB iPad.  I really would.  How hard could it be?  The iCloud will not solve this problem for me.

Obviously, I need USB 3.0 on the iPad for faster Syncing.  In fact, I really, really could have used it yesterday as I backed up and updated 3 iPod/Pads to the latest Apple iOS firmware over 2 HOURS.

USB 2.0 Sucks.

Apple on Airplanes

You may remember that last summer, a VP I talked to said that 3 out of 4 people in business class had an iPad.

Still, walking down the aisle of any airplane, you will see 2-6 Apple devices in every row, in Economy seating, including, an iPhone, iPad, or iPod.  This isn’t representative of the world, just those privileged enough to fly, and spend money on Apps, Music, and maybe even books.

Considering the Kindle

Many of you may be experts already, so ignore this if you know everything and skip to the Amusing Anecdote

I’m considering buying Kindle because:

1. It’s lightweight (less than 8 ounces)
2. It uses E-Ink (easier on the eyes)
3. Cheaper than an iPod/iPad

A Kindle can only read Amazon Kindle books (and PDFs).  You can e-mail PDFs to yourself for reading on the Kindle.

The cheapest unit is $119 with WiFi.  A 3G+WiFi unit is $139.

The 3G lets me download books anywhere I can be on the Sprint network without a Phone Plan. (maybe internationally too, I’m not sure).  This is a big bonus for getting the Wall Street Journal or your favorite paper anywhere.  That alone is worth it to many people.  You can get this on your iPad also with WiFi and a data plan.  So the Kindle is cheaper by $500 a year because it requires no data plan.

A graphic below shows the pricing so that I have something other than Text in the Blog Entry.

Amusing Anecdote

I was going to put an Amusing Anecdote about my children here, but I’m going to save that for my upcoming Novel.

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