The USB 3.2 specification has been published

The USB 3.2 specification has been published

The USB 3.2 specification has been published

 
 
USB-IF, the USB Implementers Forum, has officially announced that the USB 3.2 specification has been published. This update will be an incremental update over USB 3.1, offering 2x the maximum speed of USB 3.1 while also offering the ability to use existing USB 3.1 cables at these increased speeds. 

  
To understand the performance upgrade the USB 3.2 provides we need to look at the development of USB Type-C, which is the first USB cable standard to offer support for multi-lane operations. This ensures that this standard has the ability to scale moving forward. 

With USB 3.1 this ability has not been utilised, meaning that while USB 3.1 type-C cables are capable of higher speeds, modern USB 3.1 sockets are not. This also means that standard USB Type-A cables will not support this increase in speed,  with only sure USB Type-C cables offering this function. 
 
This means that USB 3.2 ports will be able to use existing USB 3.1 cables to offer double the data transfer speeds of USB 3.1, though this means that users will need to wait for a whole new generation of devices that offer USB 3.2 support. 

 

 

The USB 3.2 specification has been published

The move to USB 3.2 will officially make USB as fast as Thunderbolt 2.0, which is great news for USB, though this also means that Thunderbolt 3 is still 2x faster than USB 3.2.

 

Key characteristics of the USB 3.2 solution include:

– Two-lane operation using existing USB Type-C cables
– Continued use of existing SuperSpeed USB physical layer data rates and encoding techniques
– Minor update to hub specification to address increased performance and assure seamless transitions between single and two-lane operation

At this time it is unknown when we will first see devices use USB 3.2, though it is not expected to be soon given the early state of the standard. 

You can join the discussion on USB 3.2 on the OC3D Forums. 

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