Industry Expert Blogs

USB 3 protocol is now height years old, but USB 3.1 is much more recent (2014). The adoption behavior for USB protocol is unique, as USB 2.0 bandwidth (480 Mbps) is largely enough for certain applications. Nevertheless we have seen the sales for USB 3 IP passing the USB 2 in value during 2014, and the total USB IP segment becoming the largest of interfaces segment in 2015.

USB 3.x IP sales are constantly growing and we can expect applications relying on USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) to upgrade to USB 3.1 (10 Gbps). When deciding to integrate complex interface IP running at 10 Gbps, the first question coming in the selection process is: has this IP passed the qualification? Because we are talking about interface IP, you a priori don’t know the quality of the USB IP your chip will interface with. The only way to make sure that both function will smoothly communicate is the qualification process, supported by USB-IF. Synopsys has announced that their DesignWare USB 3.1 controller and PHY passed all protocol, electrical and interoperability tests to become the first IP to achieve USB-IF certification. As we will see in this paper, this long process is all but an easy trip.

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