USB 3.0 controller spec will be freely available

In a blog post, Intel employee Nick Knupffer reported that the USB 3.0 host controller specification will be released to the public in the second half of 2008. He rebuffed rumors that Intel was the single developer of the new technology, or that it intended to keep the new wired USB standard away from the competition. USB 3.0 will allow greater data transfer speeds and improved power efficiency.

"Intel plans to make this spec available early in second half of 2008 with a no-royalty licensing obligation," Knupffer wrote. "Basically: free, gratis, unpaid, zero dollars, free of charge, at no cost, on the house."

The USB 3.0 spec is being jointly developed by a group of IT companies, consisting of HP, Intel, MSFT, NEC, NXP, and TI. They are joined by over 180 contributor companies, including AMD and Nvidia, who are helping to finalize the new specification.

More from the post: "Think of the host controller spec as a 'Dummies Guide' to building a USB 3.0 compatible piece of silicon... The industry is keen to get this guide as it will allow them to build USB 3.0 compatible circuits without repeating the massive investment undertaken by Intel. (...) The sooner USB 3.0 hits the market, the sooner all you readers will be flooding your devices and hard drives with insanely large files requiring masses amounts of computational resources, improving your lives, and making you pleased that you bought a quad-core processor."

The widely used USB 2.0 interface allows maximum transfer speed of 480 Mbit/s. USB 3.0 is targeted at ten times the current bandwidth, or roughly 4.8 Gbit/s. The first devices supporting the new technology are expected to be on the market in 2009.