Categories
Archive

Intel Announces Finalized USB 2.0 Specs

Intel and a whole list of industry leaders announced (“Target Speed For USB 2.0 Announced By Industry Leaders“) the finalized specifications of USB 2.0, the successor to the current USB 1.1 implementation. According to the finalized specs, USB 2.0 will indeed challenge FireWire while maintaining complete backwards compatibility with current USB 1.1 devices:

The target speed of USB 2.0 is 480 Megabits per second (Mbs), as announced by the USB 2.0 Promoter Group, consisting of Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NEC and Philips. The target speed announcement coincides with the release of the USB 2.0 specification draft to industry developers here. The specification draft enables vendors to begin their product planning and development of USB 2.0 products.

USB 2.0 is slated to run about fourty times faster than USB 1.1. To give you an idea of how fast that is: “Consumers can back up a gigabyte of data from their PC hard drive in less than a minute on USB 2.0 versus about a half-hour on USB 1.1.” USB 2.0 is expected to be finalized in the first quarter of 2000 with the actual USB 2.0 goodies shipping in the second half of 2000.

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.