Lucent Introduces Four-Host Universal Serial Bus Chip for Personal Computers; Quadruples Total Bandwidth for Peripheral Devices - Lucent Technologies' USS-344 Quadrabus IC - Product Announcement

Cambridge Telcom Report, Nov 15, 1999

Lucent Technologies Microelectronics Group, the world leader in communications semiconductors, Monday announced a universal serial bus (USB) integrated circuit (IC) for personal computers that supports the rapid growth of USB peripherals by integrating four USB1.1 hosts onto a single chip.

As a result, it quadruples the total USB host bandwidth to 48 megabits per second (Mbps).

The IC gives computer and add-in card makers an economical way to provide sufficient USB capacity for bandwidth-hungry peripherals such as PC video cameras and USB speakers, without compromising the performance of other USB devices such as printers, scanners, modems or external disk drives.

Called the USS-344 Quadrabus IC, it supports a full 12 Mbps of bandwidth on each port, for a total device bandwidth of 48 Mbps. It interfaces directly to any 32-bit, 33 Mhz PCI bus in either a three-volt or five-volt environment.

"USB's popularity has taken off this year, with users expecting to attach an average of three peripherals to their computers as compared to only one in 1998," said Dan Devine, USB product manager with Lucent's Microelectronics Group. "Next year, it's expected to average four or more USB devices per computer. A single USB host no longer provides sufficient capacity to support that level of demand. Not only will there be more peripherals, but there will be higher bandwidth peripherals as well."

Devine noted that while many PCs come with two or more USB ports, these ports share a single 12Mbit USB host. And, while a single host can connect as many as 127 devices, high-bandwidth peripherals such as PC videoconferencing cameras or USB speakers can claim most of the host's capacity. This in-turn can cause printers, scanners, modems, or external disk drives to slow to a crawl. The USS-344 solves this problem.

"Newer PC video cameras and digital USB speakers that are isochronous devices are allocated 90% of the host's bandwidth to ensure an uninterrupted flow of time-sensitive audio-video data," explained Devine. "That leaves little bandwidth for other devices. Increasing the number of USB ports via a hub chip does not solve the problem. Our integrated four-host chip lets PC OEMs cost-effectively provide the USB capacity their customers need, sparing customers the expense of buying a costly standalone hub. With the USS-344 on a PCI Card, retail customers get more ports and more bandwidth at less than the retail price of a hub product. It's a far better value for the end-user."

Computer and add-in board makers who incorporate Lucent's USS-344 Quadrabus chip in their designs have a migration path to Lucent's USB2.0 host capability. USB 2.0 is a higher-bandwidth interconnection specification now under development by the computer industry, and is expected to be available late 2000.

"Computer makers need to offer their customers more USB bandwidth today, as consumers can't wait until USB 2.0 comes along," said Devine. "But we also want to ensure that when USB 2.0 does arrive, computer makers can implement it cost-effectively."

The USS-344 Quadrabus chip is a 3.3-volt device fabricated in Lucent's quarter-micron CMOS process technology. It is fully compliant with USB specification revision 1.1, supporting full-speed and low-speed peripherals along with all USB transfer types - control, interrupt, bulk and isochronous. The chip's OpenHCI (open host controller interface) compliance offers significant USB performance benefits and reduced CPU overhead compared to other USB UHCI host controllers. It is compatible with the Microsoft Windows standard OpenHCI drivers, and provides full support for legacy PC peripherals as defined in the OpenHCI Open Host Controller Interface Specification for USB Release 1.0a. A patent is pending on the chip's four-host design and the arbiter logic that manages data flow between the PCI bus and all four of the USB hosts.

The USS-344 Quadrabus IC will be available in early January for sample quantities, with production quantities slated for availability later in the first quarter of 2000. Unit pricing will be US$5.20 in quantities of 50,000.

For additional information on the USS-344 Quadrabus IC and other products in Lucent's line of USB1 host and peripheral ICs, customers in the U.S. may call the Lucent Technologies Microelectronics Group Customer Response Center at 800-372-2447, Dept. N11. Customers in Canada may call 800-553-2448, Dept. N11. International customers should fax their request to 1 610 712 4106, or write to Lucent Technologies, Room 30L-15P BA, 555 Union Boulevard, Allentown, Pa. 18103, USA. Information is also available on the web at http://www.lucent.com/micro/usb.> Lucent Technologies designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm for the company. For more information on Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, visit its web site at http://www.lucent.com. Lucent's Microelectronics Group designs and manufactures integrated circuits and optoelectronic components for the computer and communications industries. More information about the Microelectronics Group is available from its web site at http://www.lucent.com/micro.>

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