After decades of development, some technologies from the past have been quietly integrated into our daily lives. In a sense, the more people regard it as a matter of course, the more they illustrate the importance of those technologies to people's lives. USB is a good example.

The saying "Technology changes life" is never just a casual statement. After decades of development, some technologies from the past have been quietly integrated into our daily lives. In a sense, the more people regard it as a matter of course, the more they illustrate the importance of those technologies to people's lives. USB is a good example.

Nowadays, no one should not know the role of USB! Mobile phones, tablets, headphones, smart watches... The charging and data transmission of these smart devices rely on USB interfaces. It is hard to imagine that if there is no USB, the world would be so convenient?

However, it is such a technology that seems inconspicuous now, and it has only become so common after more than twenty years of change.

Early history: Born for universal

I believe few people will know what the full name of USB is - Universal Serial Bus. "Bus" looks like what we now understand as USB, but in terms of functionality, USB does exist the same as "bus". Bala Cadambi, one of the USB development teams, said earlier when referring to the source of the USB name, that the development team wanted to find something that might be relevant to the user and could also be used to describe the technology to name it. In most people's impression, buses are vehicles that transport passengers from point A to point B, while USB's "universal" is able to mark USB as a tool that can be used with any hardware. The full Chinese name of

USB is a universal serial bus. It is a serial bus standard and a technical specification for input and output interfaces. It was created to break the barriers between devices and achieve the purpose of universality. Perhaps you still remember the fear of being dominated by the bulky and cumbersome computer hosts in the past, colorful and dazzling interfaces, and the audio interface should be the one that can be found most quickly. Other DV and other interfaces may be difficult to connect successfully even if people directly gather in front of the host.

Source: Network

People in the 1980s and 1990s often faced this kind of trouble. Different interfaces occupied most of the computer hosts, which were difficult to find, plug in, and use... In addition, the host location was limited, making it difficult to add more input ports, which in turn limited the number of peripheral devices connected. Even if peripheral devices are connected, the desk will be filled with messy wire groups. The modem needs a line, the keyboard needs a line, the printer needs a thick and large wire. Sometimes users even need to turn on the computer and add hardware to provide them with the communication ports they need... All these problems are caused by the lack of common standards by industry suppliers.

"The world's hard interface has been long-lasting", consumers urgently need a general interface to run peripherals, and system suppliers also need a standard to replace the demand for a large number of different interfaces and reduce production costs. In this "dirty", in 1994, Intel and IBM, Compaq, Microsoft, NEC, DEC and other companies jointly proposed the USB transmission protocol, and in 1995, the USB Implementers Forum, which is now a USB standardization organization, aims to support and accelerate the adoption of USB-compatible peripherals by the market and consumers.

It has to be admitted that Intel, as the big brother in the computer field, has a close relationship with many technologies today. Ajay Bhatt, who originally had the idea of ​​developing a universal plug-and-play communication system, was an engineer at Intel. As the first funder of Bhatt USB idea, Intel has all patents on USB technology. In the early 1990s, Ajay Bhatt formed a USB development team with engineers from Compaq, DEC, IBM, Microsoft, NEC and Nortel Networks in Canada.

In fact, before the emergence of USB, some available interface technologies were already available on the market, such as Apple's IEEE 1394 (Firewire standard). Although the transmission speed is fast, it is not universal enough and has a limited application range. Moreover, the 1394 interface has no native support and can only rely on third-party chips to provide interfaces, which increases the cost of use.After exploring the Firewire Firewire standard, audio interface and other technologies, the USB development team found that none of the existing technologies could meet all the requirements of the team, especially the engineers' desire for low prices, able to power peripherals and provide a large amount of bandwidth. After continuous trial, the development team finally released its first USB design in 1995. Project manager Jim Pappas said that USB 1.0 is at 12 megabits per second, "faster than any connection method normally on the backplane of a personal computer."

Immediately afterwards, in January 1996, the USB-IF organization announced the USB 1.0 specification, but because USB 1.0 is 12 megabits per second, it is too fast for computer mouse, joystick, keyboard and other accessories with unshielded cables, the USB 1.0 specification has two speeds: 1.5Mbps and 12Mbps.

However, as an emerging interface, USB was not as popular as we thought at the beginning. On the one hand, it was because there were fewer devices that supported the USB interface, and on the other hand, due to delay and power supply problems, the USB 1.0 interface did not support the use of extension cables. Therefore, compared with the traditional transmission interface, USB does not show obvious advantages.

Until 1998, the release of the USB 1.1 specification improved the previous USB HUB problems, and could support up to 127 external devices. At the same time, there were also magnetic rings with strong anti-interference capabilities on the market, and long-term use of USB became feasible. Of course, more importantly, the continuous strengthening of support for devices and hardware such as Win98, Apple iMac G3, and Intel motherboard chipsets, and USB has ushered in a spring of development.

Development period: The rising grass-roots era

The support from the terminal is a powerful engine to promote the development of USB. Especially the popularity of iMac has accelerated the pace of USB entering the market. Coupled with the vigorous publicity of USB-IF organization, more and more devices have begun to be equipped with USB interfaces. After entering the 21st century, the USB specification has been revised many times and the naming has been revised many times. Although it was once confusing, it has to be admitted that it was in this barbaric development stage that devices equipped with USB interfaces have gradually shown a boom.

USB development history Source: adata

USB 2.0 specification was released in April 2000. At that time, with the increasing popularity of external large-capacity storage devices and digital cameras, the requirements for interface transmission speed are getting higher and higher. USB 1.1 12Mbps bandwidth can no longer meet the needs of applications. In this context, USB 2.0 came into being. Compared with version 1.1, the biggest feature of USB 2.0 is that its transmission speed spans 480 Mbps and is backward compatible with low-speed 1.5 Mbps and full-speed 12 Mbps. In addition, USB 2.0 has gradually added ECN, OTG and other functions, subdivided the interface types, and unified the charging standards. The emergence of the

USB 2.0 standard means that USB technology has begun to become truly mature and more and more devices are supported. Until 2012, 12 years after the launch of the USB 2.0 standard, the market share of USB 2.0 still exceeded 90% with its ease of use, high stability and reasonable price.

If USB 2.0 era has the rival of Firewire Standard, then after USB 3.0 was released in 2008, USB began to completely occupy the market. In early 2008, USB-IF released the USB 3.0 standard. The biggest highlight is that the ultra-high-speed transmission speed of up to 5.0 Gbps, which became the last straw that overwhelmed the Fire Line. Apple leader Jabers said that forget it, let’s not fight, and the Fire Line Standard will end.

In addition to the ultra-high-speed transmission speed, USB 3.0 also has many advantages, such as: the supply voltage to the outside is still 5V, but the maximum current reaches 900mA; and a new power management function has been added, supporting standby, sleep and tentative modes, which is more power-saving; and full-duplex communication has been introduced. After the launch of

on USB 3.0, in 2009, motherboard manufacturers such as Gigabyte and Asus successively launched motherboards with USB 3.0 interfaces, and fully launched them. In addition, PC peripheral manufacturers such as Kingston, Western Digital, and Lijie have also launched mobile storage products using USB3.0 interface.

The saying "Technology changes life" is never just a casual statement. After decades of development, some technologies from the past have been quietly integrated into our daily lives. In a sense, the more people regard it as a matter of course, the more they illustrate the importance of those technologies to people's lives. USB is a good example.

Nowadays, no one should not know the role of USB! Mobile phones, tablets, headphones, smart watches... The charging and data transmission of these smart devices rely on USB interfaces. It is hard to imagine that if there is no USB, the world would be so convenient?

However, it is such a technology that seems inconspicuous now, and it has only become so common after more than twenty years of change.

Early history: Born for universal

I believe few people will know what the full name of USB is - Universal Serial Bus. "Bus" looks like what we now understand as USB, but in terms of functionality, USB does exist the same as "bus". Bala Cadambi, one of the USB development teams, said earlier when referring to the source of the USB name, that the development team wanted to find something that might be relevant to the user and could also be used to describe the technology to name it. In most people's impression, buses are vehicles that transport passengers from point A to point B, while USB's "universal" is able to mark USB as a tool that can be used with any hardware. The full Chinese name of

USB is a universal serial bus. It is a serial bus standard and a technical specification for input and output interfaces. It was created to break the barriers between devices and achieve the purpose of universality. Perhaps you still remember the fear of being dominated by the bulky and cumbersome computer hosts in the past, colorful and dazzling interfaces, and the audio interface should be the one that can be found most quickly. Other DV and other interfaces may be difficult to connect successfully even if people directly gather in front of the host.

Source: Network

People in the 1980s and 1990s often faced this kind of trouble. Different interfaces occupied most of the computer hosts, which were difficult to find, plug in, and use... In addition, the host location was limited, making it difficult to add more input ports, which in turn limited the number of peripheral devices connected. Even if peripheral devices are connected, the desk will be filled with messy wire groups. The modem needs a line, the keyboard needs a line, the printer needs a thick and large wire. Sometimes users even need to turn on the computer and add hardware to provide them with the communication ports they need... All these problems are caused by the lack of common standards by industry suppliers.

"The world's hard interface has been long-lasting", consumers urgently need a general interface to run peripherals, and system suppliers also need a standard to replace the demand for a large number of different interfaces and reduce production costs. In this "dirty", in 1994, Intel and IBM, Compaq, Microsoft, NEC, DEC and other companies jointly proposed the USB transmission protocol, and in 1995, the USB Implementers Forum, which is now a USB standardization organization, aims to support and accelerate the adoption of USB-compatible peripherals by the market and consumers.

It has to be admitted that Intel, as the big brother in the computer field, has a close relationship with many technologies today. Ajay Bhatt, who originally had the idea of ​​developing a universal plug-and-play communication system, was an engineer at Intel. As the first funder of Bhatt USB idea, Intel has all patents on USB technology. In the early 1990s, Ajay Bhatt formed a USB development team with engineers from Compaq, DEC, IBM, Microsoft, NEC and Nortel Networks in Canada.

In fact, before the emergence of USB, some available interface technologies were already available on the market, such as Apple's IEEE 1394 (Firewire standard). Although the transmission speed is fast, it is not universal enough and has a limited application range. Moreover, the 1394 interface has no native support and can only rely on third-party chips to provide interfaces, which increases the cost of use.After exploring the Firewire Firewire standard, audio interface and other technologies, the USB development team found that none of the existing technologies could meet all the requirements of the team, especially the engineers' desire for low prices, able to power peripherals and provide a large amount of bandwidth. After continuous trial, the development team finally released its first USB design in 1995. Project manager Jim Pappas said that USB 1.0 is at 12 megabits per second, "faster than any connection method normally on the backplane of a personal computer."

Immediately afterwards, in January 1996, the USB-IF organization announced the USB 1.0 specification, but because USB 1.0 is 12 megabits per second, it is too fast for computer mouse, joystick, keyboard and other accessories with unshielded cables, the USB 1.0 specification has two speeds: 1.5Mbps and 12Mbps.

However, as an emerging interface, USB was not as popular as we thought at the beginning. On the one hand, it was because there were fewer devices that supported the USB interface, and on the other hand, due to delay and power supply problems, the USB 1.0 interface did not support the use of extension cables. Therefore, compared with the traditional transmission interface, USB does not show obvious advantages.

Until 1998, the release of the USB 1.1 specification improved the previous USB HUB problems, and could support up to 127 external devices. At the same time, there were also magnetic rings with strong anti-interference capabilities on the market, and long-term use of USB became feasible. Of course, more importantly, the continuous strengthening of support for devices and hardware such as Win98, Apple iMac G3, and Intel motherboard chipsets, and USB has ushered in a spring of development.

Development period: The rising grass-roots era

The support from the terminal is a powerful engine to promote the development of USB. Especially the popularity of iMac has accelerated the pace of USB entering the market. Coupled with the vigorous publicity of USB-IF organization, more and more devices have begun to be equipped with USB interfaces. After entering the 21st century, the USB specification has been revised many times and the naming has been revised many times. Although it was once confusing, it has to be admitted that it was in this barbaric development stage that devices equipped with USB interfaces have gradually shown a boom.

USB development history Source: adata

USB 2.0 specification was released in April 2000. At that time, with the increasing popularity of external large-capacity storage devices and digital cameras, the requirements for interface transmission speed are getting higher and higher. USB 1.1 12Mbps bandwidth can no longer meet the needs of applications. In this context, USB 2.0 came into being. Compared with version 1.1, the biggest feature of USB 2.0 is that its transmission speed spans 480 Mbps and is backward compatible with low-speed 1.5 Mbps and full-speed 12 Mbps. In addition, USB 2.0 has gradually added ECN, OTG and other functions, subdivided the interface types, and unified the charging standards. The emergence of the

USB 2.0 standard means that USB technology has begun to become truly mature and more and more devices are supported. Until 2012, 12 years after the launch of the USB 2.0 standard, the market share of USB 2.0 still exceeded 90% with its ease of use, high stability and reasonable price.

If USB 2.0 era has the rival of Firewire Standard, then after USB 3.0 was released in 2008, USB began to completely occupy the market. In early 2008, USB-IF released the USB 3.0 standard. The biggest highlight is that the ultra-high-speed transmission speed of up to 5.0 Gbps, which became the last straw that overwhelmed the Fire Line. Apple leader Jabers said that forget it, let’s not fight, and the Fire Line Standard will end.

In addition to the ultra-high-speed transmission speed, USB 3.0 also has many advantages, such as: the supply voltage to the outside is still 5V, but the maximum current reaches 900mA; and a new power management function has been added, supporting standby, sleep and tentative modes, which is more power-saving; and full-duplex communication has been introduced. After the launch of

on USB 3.0, in 2009, motherboard manufacturers such as Gigabyte and Asus successively launched motherboards with USB 3.0 interfaces, and fully launched them. In addition, PC peripheral manufacturers such as Kingston, Western Digital, and Lijie have also launched mobile storage products using USB3.0 interface.By August 2016, USB-IF organization certified nearly 120 products that meet USB 3.0 specifications, covering a variety of product types such as motherboards, notebook computers, external storage devices, storage controllers, hard drives, PCI Express and ExpressCard expansion cards, as well as separate chips. The emergence of

-related devices has accelerated the maturity of the USB 3.0 industry chain, and the corresponding prices have also begun to fall into the mainstream range. Since then, USB 3.0 has been fully integrated into our lives. After

Exclusive market, the USB-IF organization did not stop its research and development, but also started the "road to make a mistake". In 2013, USB 3.1 was released, and the theoretical speed could reach 10Gbps. However, two years after the release, that is, in 2015, the USB-IF organization issued an announcement stating that it would rename USB 3.0 to USB 3.1 Gen1 and USB 3.1 to USB 3.1 Gen2. This time, the name change caused a lot of trouble for consumers, and consumers often fell into the trap of profiteers due to temporary negligence.

In 2017, USB-IF announced that it will launch the latest version of USB 3.2 based on the improvement of USB 3.1, which will double the transmission speed from 10Gbps to 20Gbps. Since pins can be embedded on both the front and back of the Type-C interface, the transmission speed can be increased by 2 times. However, two years later, in 2019, USB-IF announced a new name change, and all the naming of USB 3.0 and USB 3.1 Gen2 were uniformly included in the ranks of USB 3.2. The three are called USB 3.2 Gen 1, USB 3.2 Gen 2, and USB 3.2 Gen 2×2. Users have started a new round of memory...

mentioned the Type-C interface above. So here I emphasize that there is no absolute relationship between the USB transmission standard and the USB interface. What determines the maximum USB transmission speed is not the form of the USB interface, but the USB transmission standard supported by the interface. Even devices that use the new USB interface Type-C that has emerged in recent years may only support the slower USB 2.0 transmission standard.

The relationship between USB transmission standard and interface

Source: ZTE Document

Mature period: Welcome to the USB4 X era

Now, the USB transmission standard has moved from the 3.x era to the USB4 X era. Although the USB4 standard, which was born in September 2019, has not yet been fully popular, it has not delayed USB-IF's launch of USB4 2.0 specification.

On September 1, USB-IF announced that it plans to release the new USB4 2.0 specification on USB DecDays held in November, and also preview some of the functional features of USB4 2.0. It is revealed that USB4 version 2.0 will support bandwidth up to 80Gbps, twice the 40Gbps of USB4 version 1.0, and is also the fastest physical interface speed at present. Brad Saunders, CEO of USB Promoter Group, notes that solutions that benefit the most from this speed boost include higher performance displays, storage, and USB-based hubs and docking stations.

In addition, thanks to the new physical layer architecture, USB4 2.0 can also enable passive USB-C cables to support 40Gbps speeds, while adding support for the latest DisplayPort (2.0) and PCIe (5.0) specifications. According to Angstronomics, USB4 Version 2.0 may support PAM3 (pulse amplitude modulation) data encoding and bring asymmetric transmission up to 120Gbps.

Although the specific features of USB4 2.0 version will not be announced until November, the above trailer alone is enough to be amazing. As an upgraded version of USB4 1.0, USB4 2.0 is indeed worth looking forward to. It should be noted that compared with previous specifications, USB4 1.0 integrates the advanced technology of Thunderbolt 3, has data transmission capabilities with ultra-large bandwidth, supports video expansion capabilities that are the same as Thunderbolt 3, and has charging functions. With the support of Thunderbolt 3, USB4 1.0 has become the most complete, smallest and fastest physical interface at present. Then USB4 2.0 based on USB4 1.0 will naturally become the best physical interface in the future.

Here I explain that the Thunderbolt protocol was developed by Intel and Apple. It has now developed to the fourth generation, namely Thunderbolt 4. Thunderbolt 3 is the third generation protocol, with full functions and top performance. As early as 2015, Thunderbolt 3 began to use the USB Type-C interface. However, due to the cost being too expensive, most of the types-C interfaces equipped with Thunderbolt 3 are high-end devices such as iMac. The launch of USB4 1.0 has completely changed the huge cost problem of the Thunderbolt 3 interface standard.In the future, with the release of USB4 2.0, Thunderbolt 3 may become more popular.

Generally speaking, the release of standards and the launch of related devices often has a long time interval. Taking USB Type-C as an example, its specification was announced in 2014, but many laptops still do not have a USB Type-C interface. According to Angstronomics, Intel will support USB 4 2.0 through its 14th-generation Core "Meteor Lake" platform in 2023, as Intel has hinted through its media to support 80 Gbps Thunderbolt input/output interfaces, and AMD will only provide USB 4 2.0-enabled CPUs in 2025. In other words, it still takes a long time to wait until USB 4 2.0 becomes a mainstream interface.

From the perspective of USB development history, in the past 20 years, every update of USB technology has brought about huge changes, and it will inevitably continue to move forward in the future.

written at the end

Some people may worry whether wireless technology will become the number one rival of USB technology, but from the current point of view, wireless technology will be difficult to shake the status of USB in the short term. On the one hand, wireless technology faces the limitations of speed problems, and the time required to transmit a large number of photos or videos is much higher than using USB. On the other hand, although wireless charging technology has appeared, this charging method still has many shortcomings. At present, most electronic devices still use wired charging.

Compared to worrying, we should probably look forward to the arrival of the USB Type-C interface era. When an interface connects all devices, it will be possible to connect to USB, and USB is not far from being truly universal.

Generally speaking, the release of standards and the launch of related devices often has a long time interval. Taking USB Type-C as an example, its specification was announced in 2014, but many laptops still do not have a USB Type-C interface. According to Angstronomics, Intel will support USB 4 2.0 through its 14th-generation Core "Meteor Lake" platform in 2023, as Intel has hinted through its media to support 80 Gbps Thunderbolt input/output interfaces, and AMD will only provide USB 4 2.0-enabled CPUs in 2025. In other words, it still takes a long time to wait until USB 4 2.0 becomes a mainstream interface.

From the perspective of USB development history, in the past 20 years, every update of USB technology has brought about huge changes, and it will inevitably continue to move forward in the future.

written at the end

Some people may worry whether wireless technology will become the number one rival of USB technology, but from the current point of view, wireless technology will be difficult to shake the status of USB in the short term. On the one hand, wireless technology faces the limitations of speed problems, and the time required to transmit a large number of photos or videos is much higher than using USB. On the other hand, although wireless charging technology has appeared, this charging method still has many shortcomings. At present, most electronic devices still use wired charging.

Compared to worrying, we should probably look forward to the arrival of the USB Type-C interface era. When an interface connects all devices, it will be possible to connect to USB, and USB is not far from being truly universal.