USB supporters rally troops, unveil host interface

Electronic News, Sept 18, 1995 by Crista Hardie

San Jose, Calif.--Intel's Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard gathered steam here as supporters unveiled a new open host controller interface (HCI) that will be implemented in silicon.

At the first USB developers conference, Microsoft joined with Compaq and National Semiconductor to unveil the (HCI) initiative for USB. Already backed by 25 PC, chipset, software, and peripheral companies, the Open HCI initiative will ostensibly make it easier for companies to more quickly develop products that support USB. Microsoft said Open HCI will also be fully supported in future versions of Windows 95 and Windows NT.

Originally introduced at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) this year (EN, March 27), USB is an open and royalty-free standard for connecting multiple external peripherals to a single connector with plug-and-play configuration.

Also positioned as a lower cost alternative to serial I/O schemes such as P1394, USB provides up to 12 megabits of isochronous (real-time interactive) bandwidth for telephony and MPEG-2 compressed video applications. USB uses one standard type of connector, and the cable uses only four wires: two for power and two for communication. The shielded twisted pair wiring allows USB to run at high speeds, while making it resistant to interference.

According to Carl Stork, director of Windows Hardware Programs at Microsoft, USB will be a key contributor to the "interactive PC," because of its simplicity and high throughput. "USB will make it a lot less painful for users to use new peripherals that haven't yet met with widespread use like gaming peripherals, tape drives, scanners, digital speakers and digital microphones," he said.

The first USB specification--authored by Compaq, DEC, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Northern Telecom--is still in development. According to Jim Pappas, Intel's department manager of Peripherals and Interconnect Technology, "it has six months to go through the preliminary specification, but there is enough information out there for companies to begin to do efforts. We're recommending that the industry start developing products, starting today."

Intel hopes to provide the impetus by disclosing the design for its own USB host controller interface. Mr. Pappas said: "When you take an implementation and make it available to the industry, it lowers the barriers for anyone who wants to enter, and then they can use USB as a way to improve the PC."

Initially, USB will be an incremental replacement for current peripheral connectors, Mr. Pappas said. Over time, PC connections will become much simpler as different port configurations become obsolete. He compared the anticipated shift to the way disk drive makers gradually migrated from 5-inch to 3.5-inch floppy disk slots.

Mr. Pappas predicted that in 1996 between 20-40 million PCs will be shipped with the USB connection. In 1997, USB will jump to the entire PC market, he predicted. In the short-term, concurred Mr. Stork, the market will start to see components supporting USB, and eventually systems will have USB built-in.

A number of companies are already preparing 1Q96 product launches. At the conference, Siemens AG demonstrated its upcoming connector and plug-and-play adapter, which are sampling now and scheduled for early-1996 rollout.

Other companies with products in development include DEC (printer), Intel (chipset), Microsoft (keyboard, mouse), NEC (monitor), Northern Telecom (PBX connection) and U.S. Robotics (modem). Microsoft also plans to provide USB drivers and other software support for Windows 95 and Windows NT in upcoming versions.

Mr. Stork said that Microchip, a large supplier of mice controllers, has also endorsed Open HCI for USB interface. He called that company's involvement "an important enabler" for the acceleration of USB.

Chipset maker OPTi Inc., meanwhile, also endorsed the host controller interface. OPTi said it is planning to implement the interface in its chipsets in Q4, 1995.