AMD Chipset Roadmap for 2009 Uncovered

[lemonadesoda]

As an additional comment, I would rather TRADE 14 usb ports for 7 ports that had DOUBLE THE POWER.

Dont you just HATE it when the USB port falls over due to too much current draw... like the ipod or an external HDD taking *just* a little too much current that it fails.

 

[btarunr]

I wish I was that USB fetish.

14 USB ports isn't a demerit. If some see it as PR crap, go on. It is PR crap, but it's not something to crib about. Additionally, AMD is too small an player to make major changes to the USB specifications and come up with 'double power' or altered polling rates.

 

[blueskynis]

Having more USB ports is a good thing, not a bad one. Every high power device should have a separate power adapter.

And: put the darn USB behind us already!

 

[lemonadesoda]

...AMD is too small an player to make major changes to the USB specifications and come up with 'double power' or altered polling rates.

Actually, no. USB specifications dont need to change. Just think about a USB hub. It provides tons more power to a USB device than a mainboard socket. Nearly every external 2.5" HDD will work from a powered hub, but will fail when connected directly to many mainboard sockets.

In fact, different mainboards + chipsets provide subtly different power
specifications/capabilities, especially regarding Vbus droop.

With USB 1.0 let alone within USB 2.0 there are plenty of options for increasing the power available for any device.

USB 2.0: Released in April 2000.

• Added higher maximum speed of 480 Mbit/s (now called Hi-Speed). Further modifications to the USB specification have been done via Engineering Change Notices (ECN). The most important of these ECNs are included into the USB 2.0 specification package available from USB.org:
• Mini-B Connector ECN: Released in October 2000.
• Specifications for Mini-B plug and receptacle. These should not be confused with Micro-B plug and receptacle.
• Errata as of December 2000: Released in December 2000.
• Pull-up/Pull-down Resistors ECN: Released in May 2002.
• Errata as of May 2002: Released in May 2002.
• Interface Associations ECN: Released in May 2003.
• New standard descriptor was added that allows multiple interfaces to be associated with a single device function.
• Rounded Chamfer ECN: Released in October 2003.
• A recommended, compatible change to Mini-B plugs that results in longer lasting connectors.
• Unicode ECN: Released in February 2005.
• This ECN specifies that strings are encoded using UTF-16LE. USB 2.0 did specify that Unicode is to be used but it did not specify the encoding.
• Inter-Chip USB Supplement: Released in March 2006.
• On-The-Go Supplement 1.3: Released in December 2006.
• USB On-The-Go makes it possible for two USB devices to communicate with each other without requiring a separate USB host. In practice, one of the USB devices acts as a host for the other device.
• Battery Charging Specification 1.0: Released in March 2007.
• Adds support for dedicated chargers (power supplies with USB connectors), host chargers (USB hosts that can act as chargers) and the No Dead Battery provision which allows devices to temporarily draw 100 mA current after they have been attached. If a USB device is connected to dedicated charger or host charger, maximum current drawn by the device may be as high as 1.5 A. (Note that this document is not distributed with USB 2.0 specification package.)
• Micro-USB Cables and Connectors Specification 1.01: Released in April 2007.
• Link Power Management Addendum ECN: Released in July 2007.
• This adds a new power state between enabled and suspended states. Device in this state is not required to reduce its power consumption. However, switching between enabled and sleep states is much faster than switching between enabled and suspended states, which allows devices to sleep while idle.
• High-Speed Inter-Chip USB Electrical Specification Revision 1.0: Released in September 2007.

http://www.beyondlogic.org/usbnutshell/usb2.htm
http://www.usbpluspower.org/specs/index.jsp
http://www.usb.org/developers/usbfaq/#pow1
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-spec7.html