Intel will natively support four USB 3.0s next year

Although Intel's support may not necessarily be the standard, if a new technology is not supported by Intel, it is simply ridiculous to want to be truly popular, such as the release of USB 3.0 for a long time, for a long time. We still have to rely on third-party controllers.

Fortunately, the native support dream of USB 3.0 will finally be realized in one year. Combining all the previous arguments (here and here) and the two official slides that we exposed today, we can finally rest assured that Intel's next-generation desktop and mobile platforms will all natively support USB 3.0.

In early 2012, Intel will launch the third-generation Core processor Ivy Bridge. The manufacturing process will be upgraded to 22nm, and the chipset will also be updated to Panther Point (which will be named 7 series P77, H77). The chipset integrated two USB 2.0 the EHCI controller supports a total of 14 USB 2.0 ports, the newly added XHCI USB 3.0 controller shared wherein the four channels to provide up to four USB 3.0.

In this way, the PC platform can save additional controllers and directly obtain high-speed new interfaces, thereby reducing power consumption and saving costs. In addition, today's third-party controllers generally only support two USB 3.0 interfaces, and native support is undoubtedly four. More perfect.

However, special attention should be paid to operating system and driver support: Windows 7 all versions and future Windows 8 can provide perfect support, driver file name is Iusb3hub. Sys, Iusb3xhc. Sys; Using native Windows EHCI drivers on Windows Vista/XP, USB 3.0 can only be downgraded to use as USB 2.0; for Linux systems, waiting for the open source community to complete the XHCI driver.

In the BIOS environment, although there is no native XHCI support, you can enumerate and support XHCI through the BIOS switch so that you can use USB 3.0 under the BIOS. When the operating system is loaded, the BIOS transfers the USB port control to the XHCI driver and the operating system takes over the control of USB 3.0.

Intel also stated that its USB 3.0 controller will be backwards compatible with USB 2.0/1.1 standard devices, and invites industry players to participate in related certifications. In addition, Microsoft's WHQL certification and official USB-IF organization certification are also planned.