ASMedia Demonstrates 10Gb/s USB 3.1 PHY

ASMedia Technologies Inc. a fabless semiconductor company that develops and markets high-speed IO solutions, demonstrated SuperSpeed USB 10Gb/s (USB 3.1) data transfer on its hardware development platform at the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) annual members meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.

This demonstration marks the first public showing of a working USB 10Gb/s PHY. The company also constructed a hardware prototyping platform consisting of a PCIe add-in card with ASMedia’s own PHY and implementing its USB 10 Gb/s host and device controllers with SSD under RAID.

“ASMedia aimed to demonstrate the real user scenario. As SSD adaption rate is growing, we believe that SSD with RAID will be the ideal product that can leverage USB 3.1 (10Gb/s) bandwidth. With ASMedia’s solution, user can enjoy the performance enhancement through USB 3.1. Just as with USB 3.0, we look forward to working closely with the USB ecosystem to enable the successful deployment of the USB 3.1 products into the market,” said Chewei Lin, CEO, ASMedia Technologies. “This demonstration represents our commitment to being a key player of USB technology and to helping our customers deliver first-to-market solutions with leading edge product performance.“

“The USB-IF is excited to see a live demonstration showing the first SuperSpeed USB 10 Gb/s PHY from ASMedia,” said Jeff Ravencraft, USB-IF president and COO. “There is a growing demand for higher through-put capabilities and by adopting USB 3.1 companies can better meet the needs of their customers while still maintaining backwards compatibility with existing USB 3.0 software stacks and device class protocols, existing 5 Gb/s hubs and devices, and USB 2.0 products.“

USB technology is one of the most successful specifications in the history of computing, and in its newest revision, USB 3.1, the data transfer rate jumps to 10 Gbp/s on a bi-directional link, more than double the effective bandwidth of the already USB 3.0 standard. The USB 3.1 specification extends existing USB 3.0 protocol and hub operation for speed scaling along with defining the next higher physical layer speed as 10Gb/s.