Somehow I just can't believe in the 'graceful fail'. I just don't see vendors putting in the effort to clearly identify and define the cause of the error and make it simple for users to understand.
I had 1 thought until I saw 'graceful fail' (although that only solves part of it): In todays USB world, almost all HW works as long as SW drivers are up to it (well, with minor exceptions like 3.5" hdds and some optical drives intended for internal PC).
So with USB3.1, the OTG-functionality problem-type is worsened: when buying a device, you will have to check if it's "partner" will be able to power it. A more specific example: you buy a USB-powered monitor which needs 30W, but you laptop can provide only 20W (which both OEMs provide in their specs). But you bougth the laptop 1 year ago, and never "memorized" this (or even think you need this info). While "gratious fail" can speed up debugging (especially for non-savy consumers), I forsee growing rate of product returns. Also these products will most likely be the higher-priced ones.
Not to mention the cases when the OEMs or sellers don't specify all the "confusing" details, like many do today.
Hopefully we'll see certain categories of devices (monitors, GPUs, external RAIDs) develop standard power requirements. Then laptop manufacturers will be able to claim what category of device their product will be able to support.
Or more than likely, these alternate modes and power delivery routes will see limited use for half a decade as all the different market segments congeal. Seems like the spec should've included some provision for the categories you described or some other rating system.
i'm very excited about usb 3.1, the type-c connector and especially power delivery, but i have my worries how the latter will work in reality.
let's say i have a small laptop with a 45w PSU and want to drive an external 30w-display with only one cable. i doubt the laptops PSU will be able to drive the display, the laptop itself and maybe charge its battery on top of that all.
a more practical scenario would be to do it the other way round: drive the laptop with the power of the display. but then manufacturers have to intentionally oversize display PSUs, just so one might connect a laptop with 30/60/90w. that would mean higher cost and a bigger PSU complete with decreased PSU efficiency when it doesn't run in its optimal range.
of course we could also go with different PSUs for the display then. the stock PSU might only power the display and maybe some small storage devices, but we can upgrade the PSU to be able to drive everything up to a gaming laptop off of it.
Switching dual-source power supply. One power supply circuit to provide power for the display, another to provide outbound USB power when needed.
Note that Apple has been doing this for years with their displays, having a "MagSafe" connector built in that can power an attached laptop. (Not single-cable, though, you have to plug in both the MagSave and the Thunderbolt - or the MagSafe plus the DisplayPort and USB, if you have the older model.)
A separate powered USB hub would be better. Single big power brick to hide under the desk, and then you power everything from there: monitor, laptop, phone, tablet, harddrives, etc. And plug all your peripherals into there: keyboard, mouse, etc.
Then you only have to worry about a single connector going into the laptop/desktop/whatever.
I can see this causing a resurgence in "docks" for laptops, using USB as the "dock connector".
There is no reason to run a desktop monitor from your laptop. If you've got a big beast of a screen, it's highly likely you'll be stationary right next to a plug. It's the reverse that's true; the monitor can power the laptop.
The rest of what you said holds true regardless. Monitors have adapters to supply whatever they need, and they need to watch their heat generation. Cheaper monitors wouldn't be able to supply a free 100 W to laptops, although laptops can usually negotiate a lower rate and just charge slower. You could also put it on sleep.
If you had a portable monitor, it would be like an ARM tablet without the ARM, and it would probably only take 4 W or so. USB 3.0 could power that, if not supply the data. USB 3.1 could handle any mobile monitor you throw at it.
(Now why aren't we seeing more of these? Or tablets with video in that can become a monitor? When the iPad 3 came out, I would have bought one JUST to use as a monitor, if it could support that.)
laptops usually have a monitor already so there's no need to use a tablet as an alternative monitor, except for rare exceptions where you need computational power but you don't need the keyboard and you have touch-friendly software on your laptop.
No reason other than to have 2 monitors, as part of a docking station set up, just to not have to squint at a small ass laptop screen when you're at home, pretty sure I could come up with 20 other reasons.. so yea your special needs effort of "No reasons" needs some revising, and maybe a little bit of thought and effortt.
I'm so glad I didn't invest a penny into USB3.0. These type-C 3.1 connectors are clearly where it is at - reversible plug, ultrafast, and with flexible, high power-capable delivery. I'm pretty excited for these to be ubiquitous!
Only really used USB 3.0 myself for backup HDDs, but it was definitely WELL worth it for that. I did buy a USB 3.0 extension to charge my OG Transformer (propriety connector on one end, 3.0 pin out on the USB/AC end).
This flexibility may enable truely great new usage cases and could simplify quite a lot of things. However, "These modes will be defined ... using Structured Vendor Defined Messages" looks like lot's of compatibility problems may be incoming.
As a non-apple-fanboy, I do have to say that the lightning connector used on iPhones is a smarter connector. If it's going to break due to external force influences, it'll break the tongue off the plug, rather than damaging the socket, subsequently a lot cheaper and easier to fix. Replacing broken microUSB ( and soon Type-C ) sockets on phones, tablets and similar devices is rarely cheap and frequently has additional complications ( such as lifting tracks, broken PCBs or just nearly impossible to find a suitable replacement connector ).
It's a lot simpler extracting a broken off tongue from a lightning socket and getting a new cable.
microUSB is designed to break off as well without damaging the socket. I'm sure Type-C maintains this functionality. It is an official feature of microUSB, and 3 of my broken cable ends over the last couple of years from dropping my phone can attest to that.
Meh, I noticed a broken micro-usb tongue in my tablet last night so it clearly isn't that well implemented a feature ... however I think USB3.1 has a thicker tongue design due to being in the centre.
I notice that over the years, the simple cheap 4-pin USB plug has now evolved into a 24-pin connector.
I've broken off the "tongue" connector that's inside the USB slot on several desktop systems. Replacing a single USB port on a desktop is not easy.
I've also broken off the "tongue" connector that's inside the micro-USB slot on a smartphone. Luckily, that was covered under warranty. There's no way to replace that manually (at least, not without a lot of specialised tools, a lot of time, a nice clean, level workspace, a steady hand, etc, etc, etc).
And several friends have also broken off the "tongue" connector inside the micro-USB slot on several devices (smartphones and tablets).
Between us, we've only had 2 USB cables fail in over a decade of use.
The "tongue" connector in USB is it's stupidest feature.
you're right, but when you look at micro usb you can see a similar tongue as in the type c connector. i'm sure there are people who managed to break off the tongue in a micro usb socket, but i don't have the feeling that it's a widespread problem.
that said, i would still have a better feeling with a more robust looking lightning-style connector, but let's just get our hands on some devices with type c until we make a final judgement.
It really should be noted that both the the Type-C Cable and Connector and the Power Delivery 2.0 Specs are entirely separate from the USB 3.1 Spec. In other words you do not need USB 3.1 SuperSpeed Plus or USB 3.0 SuperSpeed to implement either of them. You can have a USB 2.0 device that uses Type-C connectors and is capable of various PD 2.0 modes. There seems to be a ton of confusion on the interwebs about this. Mobile devices could start using the Type-C connector six months from now despite the fact that most of them won't even support USB 3.0 SuperSpeed.
Also, I'm highly doubtful that all ports will be created equal when it comes to USB PD 2.0 and battery charging. Motherboards with 14 USB ports probably won't route 100 W to each of them. And, as has already been pointed out, to supply 100 W to a single port requires at least one of the devices to have a PSU with 100 W to spare. Thus a laptop may have ports that are capable of charging it, but it will never be able to supply more than say 5 V @ 2 A (10 W, Profile 1) or 12 V @ 3 A (36 W, Profile 3). So unless the new paradigm is 7-port desktop USB hubs with 750 W PSU's, we're still not going to be able to depend on a USB port being able to power or charge a given device unless they're expressly designed to work together.
Have we seen any USB Power Delivery capable devices yet? The PD 1.0 spec was released over 2 years ago, and 1.2 came out last June. Is 2.0 going to magically gain traction where 1.x wasn't able to?
There's a difference between battery charging where lower power means slower charging and power delivery where a device needs a certain amount of juice to operate at all though.
On the desktop the kicker is likely to be that unless they create it on the mobo, there won't be a source of +20V power for the 100W mode. Unless it takes off beyond laptops (eg 20V @1A for new faster charging tablets); I suspect that desktop ports will max out at 12V @ 5A = 60W; supplying that to a port or two should be doable; but without a crazy huge PSU just for mass USB charging doing it to 10 or so will be impossible.
So looking forward to figuring out what the charging ports are in desktops, laptops, hubs, displays etc... And then finding out whether it works at all regardless.
I think of all the problems I have with different USB implementations over the years. That's from USB 1 all the way to USB 3.0 (or what I like to call, USB 3 Beta because 3.1 is the 3 we all deserved, the USB 3 post-Thunderbolt, post-Lightning).
So I think of all those incompatibilities I have had over the years when USB devices didn't mesh well with one chipset or another, when bugs would happen, and the device wouldn't run.
Now I think of 2-way power of absurd amounts going one way or another at the sole discretion of either the chipset of one device or another. I imagine how that might go wrong. How it might go really, really wrong if "incompatibilities" occur.
And I imagine suddenly the very real possibility of some device I'm trying to use draining my laptop's battery rapidly. I imagine all the ways in which a cheap USB chipset (and believe that all USB chipsets will be cheap in no time at all) is going to be capable of really screwing up things now.
Do I trust the USB chipset on my Seagate external hard drive to know better than to do what it shouldn't? No.
No, I do not. So USB 3 final (aka USB 3.1) sounds like they're making a bet that everyone will do everything they're supposed to do, which flies completely in the face of what has happened with every version of USB since USB has existed.
Why do these people always ask themselves if they CAN do a thing without first asking if they SHOULD do a thing?
And this is exactly the reason they are introducing the type c connector. They've tried to keep backwards compatibility for a long time, but after the mess that was USB 3.0 connectors it's apparent that what's needed is a fresh start. Of course the transition period will be a bit painful but once it's done we'll all be better off. The type c connector includes a fair bit of future-proofing so it should stay around for a while. Remember that the type A connector has been around for nearly 20 years and included almost no future-proofing.
Could you clarify: "One possibility that the USB-IF mentions in the specification is a theoretical means for PCI-E over USB." I didn't notice that mentioned in the link provided. Presumably this would involve encoding the pcie protocol into the USB protocol, this it would have tremendous overhead. Perhaps your point was that the USB connector/cable and the Alternate Modes standard could be used to employ pcie natively? How would that be possible without creating a new host controller? I know that usb3/xHCI stated putting much more functionality into the controllers but I didn't think they are particularly flexible as far as configuration goes.
It's in the type c connector specification, not the power delivery specification. The scenario they describe is using the connector's extra pins for a dedicated PCIe x1 link.
"The final key is that the Power Delivery specification is not just for power, nor is it just for USB. The Power Delivery Specification allows Alternate Modes to be defined"
That's what I was basing my understanding on. It says it allows "reconfiguration" of pins. That still seems to be under the PD2 scheme. I still don't understand how they can use those pins without making changes to the host controller (the xHCI might allow enough flexibility for this, but it's really not clear to me).
The host controller needs to be able to communicate in order to configure the alternate signaling modes, yes. Though I suspect this will often be done outside the USB controller itself.
So the xhci (3.1?) will need to support a diverse signalling regime (all potential protocols?!!), but what does "will often be done outside the USB controller itself" mean? Are you referring to an adjacent component to the controller which would be responsible for handling the non-usb traffic (everything related to specific line protocol that the component was designed to handle), and then simply pass on the precessed data to the (dumb)controller? Something like that makes more sense than handling this in the driver.
The port can operate in multiple different signaling modes. While it is unlikely that we'll see the xHCI controllers themselves adopt alternate modes, controllers for the current crop of multi-mode serial I/O interfaces such as DockPort or Thunderbolt are prime candidates. It appears that Intel will be including a USB 3.0 signaling mode in the next generation Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt controllers and will be switching to a new connector. Hmmm... Type-C perhaps?
Really all you need is a simple mux / switch to steer the appropriate signals from any of several different host controllers to the port based on the capabilities advertised by the device via USB PD 2.0 and the Billboard Device Class. I think what they're getting at here is that you could essentially connect a couple PCIe lanes directly to the high speed signaling lines of a USB Type-C cable using this trick.
This makes sense. So the host controllers don't actually support the protocols themselves, but simply handle the negotiations for adjacent (presumably) controllers. They better find some way to make it CLEAR to consumers what it is that each port can handle. Thanks for the explanation!
coomeooon just relleaseee iiiit alreadyyyyy .. CANT WAIT on smartphones !! FCUK the weird lightning ,or storm or thunderbolt whatever - weather called cable !!
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xilience - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Somehow I just can't believe in the 'graceful fail'. I just don't see vendors putting in the effort to clearly identify and define the cause of the error and make it simple for users to understand.Everything else in this article, thumbs up!
SuperSpy00bob - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Yeah I'm guessing there's going to be a lot of 'Insert Message Here' or engrish translated error messages.mathew7 - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
I had 1 thought until I saw 'graceful fail' (although that only solves part of it):In todays USB world, almost all HW works as long as SW drivers are up to it (well, with minor exceptions like 3.5" hdds and some optical drives intended for internal PC).
So with USB3.1, the OTG-functionality problem-type is worsened: when buying a device, you will have to check if it's "partner" will be able to power it. A more specific example: you buy a USB-powered monitor which needs 30W, but you laptop can provide only 20W (which both OEMs provide in their specs). But you bougth the laptop 1 year ago, and never "memorized" this (or even think you need this info).
While "gratious fail" can speed up debugging (especially for non-savy consumers), I forsee growing rate of product returns. Also these products will most likely be the higher-priced ones.
Not to mention the cases when the OEMs or sellers don't specify all the "confusing" details, like many do today.
xilience - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Hopefully we'll see certain categories of devices (monitors, GPUs, external RAIDs) develop standard power requirements. Then laptop manufacturers will be able to claim what category of device their product will be able to support.Impulses - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
Or more than likely, these alternate modes and power delivery routes will see limited use for half a decade as all the different market segments congeal. Seems like the spec should've included some provision for the categories you described or some other rating system.Klimax - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
You want to lose even more faith in them?Read MS USB blog entries:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usbcoreblog/
Fun...
Ethos Evoss - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
your weird comment is non understandablefokka - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
i'm very excited about usb 3.1, the type-c connector and especially power delivery, but i have my worries how the latter will work in reality.let's say i have a small laptop with a 45w PSU and want to drive an external 30w-display with only one cable. i doubt the laptops PSU will be able to drive the display, the laptop itself and maybe charge its battery on top of that all.
a more practical scenario would be to do it the other way round: drive the laptop with the power of the display. but then manufacturers have to intentionally oversize display PSUs, just so one might connect a laptop with 30/60/90w. that would mean higher cost and a bigger PSU complete with decreased PSU efficiency when it doesn't run in its optimal range.
of course we could also go with different PSUs for the display then. the stock PSU might only power the display and maybe some small storage devices, but we can upgrade the PSU to be able to drive everything up to a gaming laptop off of it.
like i said, i'm excited how that all plays out.
Paul Tarnowski - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
I share your concerns. The only graceful way I can think of is that the power supply be a USB hub, so it has x number of ports and the power for it.CharonPDX - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Switching dual-source power supply. One power supply circuit to provide power for the display, another to provide outbound USB power when needed.Note that Apple has been doing this for years with their displays, having a "MagSafe" connector built in that can power an attached laptop. (Not single-cable, though, you have to plug in both the MagSave and the Thunderbolt - or the MagSafe plus the DisplayPort and USB, if you have the older model.)
phoenix_rizzen - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
A separate powered USB hub would be better. Single big power brick to hide under the desk, and then you power everything from there: monitor, laptop, phone, tablet, harddrives, etc. And plug all your peripherals into there: keyboard, mouse, etc.Then you only have to worry about a single connector going into the laptop/desktop/whatever.
I can see this causing a resurgence in "docks" for laptops, using USB as the "dock connector".
mkozakewich - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
There is no reason to run a desktop monitor from your laptop. If you've got a big beast of a screen, it's highly likely you'll be stationary right next to a plug. It's the reverse that's true; the monitor can power the laptop.The rest of what you said holds true regardless. Monitors have adapters to supply whatever they need, and they need to watch their heat generation. Cheaper monitors wouldn't be able to supply a free 100 W to laptops, although laptops can usually negotiate a lower rate and just charge slower. You could also put it on sleep.
If you had a portable monitor, it would be like an ARM tablet without the ARM, and it would probably only take 4 W or so. USB 3.0 could power that, if not supply the data. USB 3.1 could handle any mobile monitor you throw at it.
(Now why aren't we seeing more of these? Or tablets with video in that can become a monitor? When the iPad 3 came out, I would have bought one JUST to use as a monitor, if it could support that.)
Murloc - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
laptops usually have a monitor already so there's no need to use a tablet as an alternative monitor, except for rare exceptions where you need computational power but you don't need the keyboard and you have touch-friendly software on your laptop.markass530 - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
No reason other than to have 2 monitors, as part of a docking station set up, just to not have to squint at a small ass laptop screen when you're at home, pretty sure I could come up with 20 other reasons.. so yea your special needs effort of "No reasons" needs some revising, and maybe a little bit of thought and effortt.3DoubleD - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
I'm so glad I didn't invest a penny into USB3.0. These type-C 3.1 connectors are clearly where it is at - reversible plug, ultrafast, and with flexible, high power-capable delivery. I'm pretty excited for these to be ubiquitous!fokka - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
usb3 is great too, but sure, 3.1 brings usb to a whole new level. can't wait for the market to make the switch.Deelron - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Oh it's been worth the couple of dollars more to get the faster transfers (as a late adopter).Impulses - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
Only really used USB 3.0 myself for backup HDDs, but it was definitely WELL worth it for that. I did buy a USB 3.0 extension to charge my OG Transformer (propriety connector on one end, 3.0 pin out on the USB/AC end).MrSpadge - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
This flexibility may enable truely great new usage cases and could simplify quite a lot of things. However, "These modes will be defined ... using Structured Vendor Defined Messages" looks like lot's of compatibility problems may be incoming.AppleCrappleHater2 - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
As a non-apple-fanboy, I do have to say that the lightning connector used on iPhones is a smarter connector. If it's going to break due to external force influences, it'll break the tongue off the plug, rather than damaging the socket, subsequently a lot cheaper and easier to fix. Replacing broken microUSB ( and soon Type-C ) sockets on phones, tablets and similar devices is rarely cheap and frequently has additional complications ( such as lifting tracks, broken PCBs or just nearly impossible to find a suitable replacement connector ).It's a lot simpler extracting a broken off tongue from a lightning socket and getting a new cable.
darth415 - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
microUSB is designed to break off as well without damaging the socket. I'm sure Type-C maintains this functionality. It is an official feature of microUSB, and 3 of my broken cable ends over the last couple of years from dropping my phone can attest to that.psychobriggsy - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Meh, I noticed a broken micro-usb tongue in my tablet last night so it clearly isn't that well implemented a feature ... however I think USB3.1 has a thicker tongue design due to being in the centre.I notice that over the years, the simple cheap 4-pin USB plug has now evolved into a 24-pin connector.
phoenix_rizzen - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
I've broken off the "tongue" connector that's inside the USB slot on several desktop systems. Replacing a single USB port on a desktop is not easy.I've also broken off the "tongue" connector that's inside the micro-USB slot on a smartphone. Luckily, that was covered under warranty. There's no way to replace that manually (at least, not without a lot of specialised tools, a lot of time, a nice clean, level workspace, a steady hand, etc, etc, etc).
And several friends have also broken off the "tongue" connector inside the micro-USB slot on several devices (smartphones and tablets).
Between us, we've only had 2 USB cables fail in over a decade of use.
The "tongue" connector in USB is it's stupidest feature.
fokka - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
you're right, but when you look at micro usb you can see a similar tongue as in the type c connector. i'm sure there are people who managed to break off the tongue in a micro usb socket, but i don't have the feeling that it's a widespread problem.that said, i would still have a better feeling with a more robust looking lightning-style connector, but let's just get our hands on some devices with type c until we make a final judgement.
repoman27 - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
It really should be noted that both the the Type-C Cable and Connector and the Power Delivery 2.0 Specs are entirely separate from the USB 3.1 Spec. In other words you do not need USB 3.1 SuperSpeed Plus or USB 3.0 SuperSpeed to implement either of them. You can have a USB 2.0 device that uses Type-C connectors and is capable of various PD 2.0 modes. There seems to be a ton of confusion on the interwebs about this. Mobile devices could start using the Type-C connector six months from now despite the fact that most of them won't even support USB 3.0 SuperSpeed.Also, I'm highly doubtful that all ports will be created equal when it comes to USB PD 2.0 and battery charging. Motherboards with 14 USB ports probably won't route 100 W to each of them. And, as has already been pointed out, to supply 100 W to a single port requires at least one of the devices to have a PSU with 100 W to spare. Thus a laptop may have ports that are capable of charging it, but it will never be able to supply more than say 5 V @ 2 A (10 W, Profile 1) or 12 V @ 3 A (36 W, Profile 3). So unless the new paradigm is 7-port desktop USB hubs with 750 W PSU's, we're still not going to be able to depend on a USB port being able to power or charge a given device unless they're expressly designed to work together.
repoman27 - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Have we seen any USB Power Delivery capable devices yet? The PD 1.0 spec was released over 2 years ago, and 1.2 came out last June. Is 2.0 going to magically gain traction where 1.x wasn't able to?markass530 - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
That stuff is proprietary , not a USB standardmarkass530 - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
nevermindMikeMurphy - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Somewhat like present USB, dedicated chargers work best while standard ports will also do the job, but slower. Consumers already manage this.repoman27 - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
There's a difference between battery charging where lower power means slower charging and power delivery where a device needs a certain amount of juice to operate at all though.DanNeely - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
On the desktop the kicker is likely to be that unless they create it on the mobo, there won't be a source of +20V power for the 100W mode. Unless it takes off beyond laptops (eg 20V @1A for new faster charging tablets); I suspect that desktop ports will max out at 12V @ 5A = 60W; supplying that to a port or two should be doable; but without a crazy huge PSU just for mass USB charging doing it to 10 or so will be impossible.Impulses - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
So looking forward to figuring out what the charging ports are in desktops, laptops, hubs, displays etc... And then finding out whether it works at all regardless.Gigaplex - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
It's not hard to step up voltage levels.iwod - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
I wish they could do a USB 3.3 where they just have all these spec required and Type-C by default.HisDivineOrder - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
I think of all the problems I have with different USB implementations over the years. That's from USB 1 all the way to USB 3.0 (or what I like to call, USB 3 Beta because 3.1 is the 3 we all deserved, the USB 3 post-Thunderbolt, post-Lightning).So I think of all those incompatibilities I have had over the years when USB devices didn't mesh well with one chipset or another, when bugs would happen, and the device wouldn't run.
Now I think of 2-way power of absurd amounts going one way or another at the sole discretion of either the chipset of one device or another. I imagine how that might go wrong. How it might go really, really wrong if "incompatibilities" occur.
And I imagine suddenly the very real possibility of some device I'm trying to use draining my laptop's battery rapidly. I imagine all the ways in which a cheap USB chipset (and believe that all USB chipsets will be cheap in no time at all) is going to be capable of really screwing up things now.
Do I trust the USB chipset on my Seagate external hard drive to know better than to do what it shouldn't? No.
No, I do not. So USB 3 final (aka USB 3.1) sounds like they're making a bet that everyone will do everything they're supposed to do, which flies completely in the face of what has happened with every version of USB since USB has existed.
Why do these people always ask themselves if they CAN do a thing without first asking if they SHOULD do a thing?
supgk - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Just wait for Type D.... out in 2 years or so.So many devices still coming out today use a mix of type B, Mini-B and Micro-B cables around so I don't think type C will catch on anytime soon.
It's really terrible, just went on holiday thinking I had brought along a Micro-B.. but wrong, it was a Mini.. had to buy another one. USB is garbage.
SirKnobsworth - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
And this is exactly the reason they are introducing the type c connector. They've tried to keep backwards compatibility for a long time, but after the mess that was USB 3.0 connectors it's apparent that what's needed is a fresh start. Of course the transition period will be a bit painful but once it's done we'll all be better off. The type c connector includes a fair bit of future-proofing so it should stay around for a while. Remember that the type A connector has been around for nearly 20 years and included almost no future-proofing.tuxRoller - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Could you clarify: "One possibility that the USB-IF mentions in the specification is a theoretical means for PCI-E over USB."I didn't notice that mentioned in the link provided. Presumably this would involve encoding the pcie protocol into the USB protocol, this it would have tremendous overhead. Perhaps your point was that the USB connector/cable and the Alternate Modes standard could be used to employ pcie natively? How would that be possible without creating a new host controller? I know that usb3/xHCI stated putting much more functionality into the controllers but I didn't think they are particularly flexible as far as configuration goes.
SirKnobsworth - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
It's in the type c connector specification, not the power delivery specification. The scenario they describe is using the connector's extra pins for a dedicated PCIe x1 link.tuxRoller - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
"The final key is that the Power Delivery specification is not just for power, nor is it just for USB. The Power Delivery Specification allows Alternate Modes to be defined"That's what I was basing my understanding on. It says it allows "reconfiguration" of pins. That still seems to be under the PD2 scheme.
I still don't understand how they can use those pins without making changes to the host controller (the xHCI might allow enough flexibility for this, but it's really not clear to me).
SirKnobsworth - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
The host controller needs to be able to communicate in order to configure the alternate signaling modes, yes. Though I suspect this will often be done outside the USB controller itself.tuxRoller - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
So the xhci (3.1?) will need to support a diverse signalling regime (all potential protocols?!!), but what does "will often be done outside the USB controller itself" mean? Are you referring to an adjacent component to the controller which would be responsible for handling the non-usb traffic (everything related to specific line protocol that the component was designed to handle), and then simply pass on the precessed data to the (dumb)controller? Something like that makes more sense than handling this in the driver.repoman27 - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
The port can operate in multiple different signaling modes. While it is unlikely that we'll see the xHCI controllers themselves adopt alternate modes, controllers for the current crop of multi-mode serial I/O interfaces such as DockPort or Thunderbolt are prime candidates. It appears that Intel will be including a USB 3.0 signaling mode in the next generation Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt controllers and will be switching to a new connector. Hmmm... Type-C perhaps?Really all you need is a simple mux / switch to steer the appropriate signals from any of several different host controllers to the port based on the capabilities advertised by the device via USB PD 2.0 and the Billboard Device Class. I think what they're getting at here is that you could essentially connect a couple PCIe lanes directly to the high speed signaling lines of a USB Type-C cable using this trick.
tuxRoller - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
This makes sense. So the host controllers don't actually support the protocols themselves, but simply handle the negotiations for adjacent (presumably) controllers.They better find some way to make it CLEAR to consumers what it is that each port can handle.
Thanks for the explanation!
[email protected] - Friday, September 19, 2014 - link
A home that runs only on DC power (Harvested from PV panels), Can this technology take us closer to that?Ethos Evoss - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
coomeooon just relleaseee iiiit alreadyyyyy .. CANT WAIT on smartphones !! FCUK the weird lightning ,or storm or thunderbolt whatever - weather called cable !!