Our man in Hannover has been drooling all over the new super-speed USB 3.0 technology at CeBit 2009. The demonstration of the new standard in the USB Implementers Forum at the tech show revealed speeds that were a massive leap forward from the current USB 2.0 format. While USB 1.0 only was able to transmit at 12 Mbps, USB 2.0, at 480 Mbps was a significant improvement when it came out. However, USB 3.0 Superspeed will signify a quantum leap: The new standard should be able to transmit data from one device to another at a lightning fast 4.8 Gbps.
The system we saw at CeBit is based around a simulation of FGPAs, and reaches a top data transfer speed of 155Mbytes/s. According to the USB Implementers Forum, the first chips supporting super-speed USB 3.0 will be available from autumn of this year. The cables and switches will be backwards-compatible, so you’ll be able to plug a USB 2.0 cable into a version 3.0 socket.
