SuperSpeed USB 3.0 specification gets a transceiver which matches its potential

USB has come a long way from its initial 12 Mbps rate and role as a basic, standardized interface between PCs and peripherals such as keyboard, mouse, or scanner. The SuperSpeed 3.0 specification, which is backwards compatible with version 2.0, intends to achieve a transfer speeds of 5.0 Gbit/s with raw throughput of 4 Gbit/s, and it is possible and reasonable to achieve 3.2 Gbit/s (0.4 GByte/s or 400 MByte/s), and possibly more, after protocol overhead.

But entering this speed realm means there are signal integrity issues in terms of drive, distortion, and input sensitivity, among others. The TUSB1310 from Texas Instruments, which the vendor claims is the industry's first integrated discrete SuperSpeed USB 3.0 transceiver, addresses these issues as well as system-level considerations.

The performance attributes begin with a differential peak-signal receiver sensitivity of 50 mV–twice what is called for in the speciation–and a plus for driving long cables as well as simplifying PC board layout. There's also a clocking flexibility, so the IC can use the system clock as a source. The TUSB1310 can also implement spread-spectrum clocking from the system clock, thus cutting the BOM size and cost while reducing EMI. The USB interface supports all USB application modes and link-layer interfaces, including a PIPE3 USB 3.0 PHY for SuperSpeed signaling and ULPI USB 2.0 PHY for high-speed, full-speed, and low-speed signaling (see figure).

System-level interconnection for Texas Instruments TUSB1310 USB 3.0 transceiver

You can see a real-time download comparison between USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 here–Bill Schweber

Packaging, pricing, and availability: The TUSB1310 is packaged in a 175 BGA and starts at $6.00 in 1,000-unit quantities; it is available now.

For more information, go to www.ti.com/tusb1310-pr.