USB 3.0 hubs are apparently still being developed and VIA Labs announced a few days ago that it’s ready to unleash its third generation USB 3.0 hub controller. The big news this time around is a more power efficient design that allows for more bus powered devices to be used simultaneously.
If you're a regular reader you might remember that VIA Labs announced its USB2Expressway technology back at CES, but it wasn't really clear as to how it worked. Well, we've now had a chance to sit down with the company for an explanation and it's actually a lot simpler than it seemed.
VIA has teamed up with a company called Tensilica to license its Xtensa dataplane processors – or DPUs as the company calls them – to create its own SSD controller. Tensilica is a company that develops IP for customizable RISC cores – much like an FPGA in some ways – as well as a wide range of DSPs.
One of the drawbacks of USB, no matter the version is the limited range of 5m, not an issue for most home users, but known to be a big problem when it comes to a lot of vertical markets. With USB 2.0 it was easy enough to extend the connections over an Ethernet cable with the help of some signal boosters, but USB 3.0 required a different solution and VIA Labs seems to have come up with a solution to the problem with some help of fibre optical cable.
Believe us when we say that this is one of the most epic reviews we've ever put together. Not because it was the hardest roundup we've ever done, but it's by far the most time consuming one and it doesn't even have anything to do with the benchmarks we ran. We thought it'd be a good idea to do a comparative review of the various USB 3.0 host controllers out there, as by now we've finally reached a stage where there's some competition in the market with at least three major players and a couple of smaller ones. VR-Zone is also proud to have a world exclusive first review of the upcoming Renesas D720201 host controller which is launching later this year as part of this roundup.
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