The company's µPD720100A host controller has been shipping since last March and bears the USB 2.0 logo, indicating compliance with the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) standard. NEC is a core member of USB-IF and was first out of the chute with a compliant controller for the volume market.

The company claims to have sold 2 million units of its host controller worldwide last year. More than 50 customers, including Adaptec Inc., are said to have designed the controller into PCI add-in cards and PCMCIA cards.

"Motherboard vendors started offering PC motherboards with USB 2.0 controllers just around December. If PCs start equipping for USB 2.0, that will drive USB 2.0 penetration," said Takatoshi Koga, assistant general manager of NEC Electron Devices. NEC is betting on its head start in the controller market to expand its position in USB 2.0 as the interface catches on for the desktop. "The rapid growth of the host controller LSI helps assure the growth of the whole USB 2.0 LSI market," Koga said.

The company says it has received orders for a further 2 million units in the first quarter from such vendors as Intel and Taiwanese motherboard makers MSI, Gigabyte and AsusTec for use in desktop motherboards.

USB interface chips are roughly divided into three categories: the host controller, the peripherals/device controller and the hub controller. Following the rollout of the µPD720100A host controller in March, NEC brought out the µPD720121 IDE bridge for storage devices in April and the µPD720110A hub controller in May. In December, NEC added the µPD720122, for printers and scanners.

NEC expects to have sold 3 million units of USB 2.0 chips other than host controllers in its current fiscal year, which ends in March.

Intel Corp. plans a midyear rollout of a chip set embedding a USB 2.0 host controller. NEC acknowledges that "once Intel starts providing chip sets with a USB 2.0 host controller, our sales of host controllers [for the interface] may shrink," said Takahiro Tokuume, group manager of sales at NEC Electron Devices. "But we've already [accounted for that possibility] in our business plan. We do not depend only on host controller LSIs but expect a bigger opportunity in peripheral LSIs."

NEC was one of seven core members of USB-IF to have worked on USB 2.0 standardization, together with Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, Intel, Agere and Philips. "A standardized format requires verification of interoperability. We've been working on verification of the USB 2.0 technology for a long time as a core member. This long-term accumulated experience differentiates us from competitors that lack it," said Osamu Matsushima, senior manager of USB 2.0 LSI development at NEC Electron Devices.

In December, Microsoft introduced a USB 2.0 driver for Windows XP and Windows 2000 that currently supports only NEC's host controller. The development tool sold by USB-IF for peripheral development also employs NEC's chip.

NEC expects that the number of PCs and peripherals supporting USB 2.0 will grow more than six times this year.

The company fabricates its USB 2.0 chips on a 0.35-micron process. NEC can easily expand production using existing lines, Koga said.