Intel launches USB 2.0

Intel's Pat 'Kicking' Gelsinger, the company's desktop products group VP, will today unveil the long-awaited final spec for USB 2.0 at WinHEC. USB 2.0 takes the bus' data throughput up to and beyond IEEE 1394 standards. 1394 currently runs at 400Mbps - USB 2.0 will run at 480Mbps, forty times greater than USB 1.1's 12Mbps. USB 2.0 hubs will support version 1.1 peripherals, but not vice versa.

If Gelsinger's pronouncements on USB 2.0 to date are anything to go by, he's unlikely to mention 1394, but Chipzilla's line continues to be that the two connectivity solutions are complementary, and that USB 2.0 isn't about killing off 1394. To a degree that's correct, but the arrival of USB 2.0 does mean no PC-oriented periheral need support 1394, relegating the interface solely to digital video kit. And if that's not about eliminating 1394 from the mainstream, we don't know what is. ®