Slashdot Mirror
Clash of the Titans Over USB 3.0 Specification Process
Ian Lamont writes "Nvidia and other chip designers are accusing Intel of 'illegally restraining trade' in a dispute over the USB 3.0 specification. The dispute has prompted Nvidia, AMD, Via, and SiS to establish a rival standard for the USB 3.0 host controller. An Intel spokesman denies the company is making the USB specification, or that USB 3.0 'borrows technology heavily' from the PCI Special Interests group. He does, however, say that Intel won't release an unfinished Intel host controller spec until it's ready, as it would lead to incompatible hardware."
Ever the more reason to never give up Firewire until they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
As we have seen with wireless networking gear in the past companies are all too eager to screw the consumer with incompatibilities because of pre-spec products being released. If Intel was doing this I would say good for them, its rare a company would actively try to protect the consumer from these vultures.
Oh, you mean like Intel won over AMD with their attempt at a 64 bit processor instruction set?
(In case you don't know: They did absolutely not. Intel had to scrap their 64 bit processor because nobody wanted it, and today's Intel 64 bit processors uses AMD's instruction set.)
This one's not over yet. Apparently online distribution was a third contender waiting in the wings. We shall see. Sony bought out HD-DVD. They can't buy out online distribution. In the meantime BD players and discs have gone up in price not down. That was a critical mistake.
Sony has some of the most brilliant engineers on earth. They're chained to the marketing team from hell. They always try to exploit their market share before it's time. A shame, really. They do a host other things wrong too. If it weren't so their supercomputer class gaming console would not be coming in third to the XBox and the Wii. They could use a consultant to come in and tell them how retarded their marketing team is, but they have too much pride to win. Surely I'm not the only one who sees this.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
USB2 is quoted as having 480Mbps throughput, however as the grandparent points out USB2 is not a fully-fledged I/O controller just the PHY layer, the host having to do all the heavy lifting.
The upshot is that when you actually use one bus or the other to, say copy files, firewire at a mere 400Mbps trounces USB2 in throughput.
Yes USB3 is in the pipe with vastly improved on paper specs, but then again Firewire has 3200 and 6400 variants in the pipe as well.
Essentially USB should have been left as an interface for keyboards and mice, and firewire aught to have been adopted by intel as the preferred bus for all high throughput applications, it would also have been preferable to SATA.
Firewire might pay for itself in high speed applications where time == money, but it is sever overkill (and too high cost) for many lower speed applications such as mouse, keyboard etc. USB is king of the low speed domain because of low cost: a USB-cappable microcontroller only costs a couple of bucks and a sub dollar micro can do a low speed bit-banged implementation of USB. Adding USB to peripherals is almost free.
Engineering is the art of compromise.