The latest in USB technology, ‘SuperSpeed’ USB 3.0, is set to take off over the next couple of years and a recent report forecasts that by 2012 it will have reached mainstream adoption in the consumer electronics marketplace.
According to research firm In-Stat, USB 3.0 technology will see initial adoption start in 2010 and by 2012 attach rates will soar to over 70 per cent in external hard-drives and flash drives. Similar attach rates are also expected for notebook and desktop PCs, Portable Media Players, LCD PC monitors and digital still cameras.
The report highlights that peripherals like external hard-drives and flash drives will be the first to adopt the technology due to the fact that they require high data transfer rates and large data stores.
By 2013, shipments of USB 3.0 flash drives will approach 200 million units worldwide and will represent approximately 25 per cent of the entire USB market.
“SuperSpeed may eventually move beyond those target applications requiring the highest bandwidth,” said Brian O’Rourke, In-Stat analyst.
“However, in order to achieve broader adoption, cost will have to go down significantly. To get SuperSpeed USB costs down and increase attach rates, the technology will have to be integrated into the application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), and System-on-a-Chips (SoCs), that power the peripherals.”
Some of the other interesting findings to come out of the report were that USB is now the most successful interface ever with over three billion devices shipped in 2008 alone, digital TVs with USB connections will grow to 140 million units by 2013 and consumer electronics devices with USB will rise at a 6.6 per cent compound annual growth rate between 2008 and 2013.