USB 3.0

The much awaited SuperSpeed USB is finally available embedded with some unique features of power management and high speed. It was firstly demonstrated by Intel at the Intel Developer Forum back in 2007 and its specifications were completed in November 2008. However there have been major advancements with respect to factors like data rate and compatibility.

Some key features that distinguish it from the conventional USB 2.0 are:

• It is provided with additional pins that enable higher speed upto 3 to 4 Gbps. USB 2.0 can never go higher than 480 Mbps.
• USB 2.0 provides 100mA while USB 3.0 provided 50% more i.e 150mA, curtailing the power consumption.
• All the sockets working with USB 2.0 can now be operated in the similar manner with USB 3.0, so there is a backward compatibility.
• Its uses a bidirectional data transfer while USB 3.0 used a half duplex arrangement where data only flow at a time in a specific direction.
• Hubs are not used for broadcast packet transmission.

USB 3.0 can be easily used with USB 2.0 compatible devices and features like high speed capability and efficient power management can be utilized for data transfer.