The USB 3.1 standard has significantly raised the transmission speed to 10Gbps, up from the 5Gbps for USB 3.0, but the technology will still struggle to replace HDMI and Thunderbolt for Ultra HD image transmissions, according to Digitimes Research.
Following the announcement of USB 3.1 technological standards in July 2013, IC design houses are now expected to begin rolling out engineering samples of USB 3.1 host controller and peripheral chips in the second half of 2014 for evaluation by system providers, Digitimes Research noted.
However, since the transmission of Ultra HD images requires a transmission speed of 12Gbps, the 10Gbps USB 3.1 can only support Ultra HD video at half vertical refresh rates, said Digitimes Research.
Additionally, HDMI 2.0 will upgrade speeds to 18Gbps from the previous 10.2Gbps, while Thunderbolt 2 will also ramp speeds from the previous 10Gbps to 20Gbps. Both HDMI 2.0 and Thunderbolt 2 will fully support Ultra HD transmissions, with their markets unaffected by the roll-out of USB 3.1 technology, commented Digitimes Research.
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