ASMedia Preparing USB 3.5 “10Gbps” Standard

ASMedia’s USB 3.0 controllers were a huge success in the PC market and we have seen the USB 3.0 standard take off in recent times. ASMedia were the main provider of USB 3.0 controller chips for a long time as chipset manufacturers (mainly Intel and AMD) took a while to natively integrate USB 3.0 into their chipsets. This meant that ASMedia saw strong demand for USB 3.0 as they were the main providers of third party USB 3.0 host controllers to motherboard vendors who wanted to integrate USB 3.0 support.

Now ASMedia are looking to push the USB market forward once again as they are preparing the next incarnation of the USB series according to AppleDaily.com.tw, that is USB 3.5. It is somewhat surprising that they are opting for USB 3.5 not USB 4.0 but either way this new standard effectively doubles current bandwidth (5Gbps) to 10Gbps levels. Furthermore it will continue the USB trend of delivering high power output for device charging and will retain backwards compatibility with all older USB standards.

USB 3.5 is being described as a Thunderbolt killer as it offers the same bandwidth yet will do so at a fraction of the cost. The sluggish demand for Thunderbolt has been shown as a 2 year head start has seen very little progress and even today Thunderbolt is still seen as the overpriced Apple interface thanks to its early exclusivity on the Mac platform.

What do you think of USB 3.5? Is it a good move? Or is it a bit too forward considering not everyone is even onboard with USB 3.0 yet?

Image courtesy of AppleDaily.com.tw