USB 3.0 from Icron's Perspective

The Universal Serial Bus is the most widely deployed PC peripheral interface in history, enabling simple plug and play connectivity for a wide variety of devices to enhance the computing experience.

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 will provide a performance enhancement of speeds up to 5.0 Gb/s with distances up to 3 meters (9.8 feet) for newer storage and multimedia devices, greatly improving transfer times for large files and blocks of data.

USB 3.0 plugs will be backwards compatible with USB 2.0 devices. For example, you can plug in a USB 3.0 cable into a USB 2.0 port. However, a new USB 3.0 Standard-B receptacle has been designed to accept only USB 3.0 plugs along with a new mini USB 3.0 connector. The USB 3.0 connectors are designed to co-exist and not replace a USB 2.0 connector. Therefore, the importance of extending USB 2.0 will continue to dominate the market.

As a technology demo, Icron Technologies and Intersil Corporation have jointly developed a 20 meter (65.6 feet) USB 3.0 extension cable that delivers the full USB 3.0 throughput over 20 meters. Additionally, the cable incorporates Icron's IC, featuring ExtremeUSB® technology, enabling the extension for all USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 devices over the entire 20 meter length of the cable.

Please visit our Technical FAQ for more details on other Icron solutions.