{"id":7907,"date":"2018-09-27T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-27T08:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spo-comm.sandboxsite.de\/good-to-know-what-is-usb\/"},"modified":"2025-04-01T14:05:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T12:05:25","slug":"good-to-know-what-is-usb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spo-comm.de\/en\/good-to-know-what-is-usb\/","title":{"rendered":"Good to know: What is USB?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Universal Serial Bus &#8211; USB<\/h2>\n<p>The well-known abbreviation USB stands for <a href=\"https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Universal_Serial_Bus\" data-htmlarea-external=\"1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Universal Serial Bus<\/a> and describes a serial bus system that was developed by a merger of several companies &#8211; including NEC and Microsoft &#8211; for connecting peripheral devices to PCs. A computer with a USB port, but also USB sticks, can be connected to each other during operation, whereby the external device and its properties are automatically recognized. This process is known as <a href=\"https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hot_Swapping\" data-htmlarea-external=\"1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hot plugging<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>From USB 1.0 to USB 3.1 SuperSpeed &#8211; the development of the interface<\/h2>\n<p>The first USB 1.0 specification with a data rate of 12 Mbit\/s was launched on the market in 1996. With the introduction of USB 2.0 in 2000, hard disks and video devices could now also be connected thanks to a data rate of up to 480 Mbps.<\/p>\n<p>Ten years ago, the new specifications for <a href=\"https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Universal_Serial_Bus#USB_3.0\" data-htmlarea-external=\"1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">USB 3.0 SuperSpeed<\/a> &#8211; also known as USB 3.1 Gen. 1 &#8211; with a data rate of 5 Gbit\/s were introduced. New cables, plugs and sockets were also introduced at the same time. In 2013, <a href=\"https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Universal_Serial_Bus#USB_3.1\" data-htmlarea-external=\"1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">USB 3.1<\/a> &#8211; known as USB 3.1 Gen. 2 &#8211; which doubled the speed of its predecessor to 10 Gbit\/s, was completed. The very latest USB 3.2 specification with a data rate of up to 20 Gbit\/s was only published in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>By the way: Every spo-comm Mini-PC system is equipped with at least one USB 3.0 port!<\/p>\n<h2>USB transmission technologies<\/h2>\n<p>USB communication is controlled by a host controller, which is usually installed on the mainboard. Only this controller can read the data of a device or send data to the device. However, the device may only send data if this is requested by the host controller.<\/p>\n<p>There are four established standards to which the USB controller chips adhere and which differ in terms of their performance and the implementation of functions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Universal Host Controller Interface<strong>(UHCI<\/strong>): Was specified by Intel in 1995 and offers data rates of 1.5 to 12Mbit\/s.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Open Host Controller Interface<strong>(OHCI<\/strong>): Developed by a consortium of companies and only marginally faster than its counterpart UHCI.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Enhanced Host Controller Interface<strong>(EHCI<\/strong>): Provides USB 2.0 functions and is designed for Hi-Speed mode (480 Mbit\/s). When transferring to a USB 1.0\/1.1 device, OHCI &amp; UHCI must still be supported.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Extensible Host Controller Interface<strong>(xHCI<\/strong>): xHCI was published by Intel in 2010, offers USB 3.0 functions and provides the SuperSpeed mode with 4.0 Gbit\/s &#8211; with USB 3.1 even 9.7 Gbit\/s.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The different connector types of a USB<\/h2>\n<p>The Universal Serial Bus has various plugs and sockets that differ in terms of their dimensions, but also in terms of the possible data transfer speeds.<\/p>\n<p>The latest of these is the universal USB type C connection, which is also used in smartphones, among other things, due to its low height and width. Data rates of up to 10 Gbit\/s or 1.25 Gb\/s are possible here, as USB 3.1 Gen 2 is supported. The USBC interface is suitable for transferring audio and video data in parallel with USB data and also supports DisplayPort, PCIe &amp; Thunderbolt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"more\"><a href=\"\/produkte\/alle-mini-pcs\/\" data-htmlarea-external=\"1\" class=\"button\">Discover all spo-comm Mini-PCs!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"more\"><a href=\"\/blog\/wissen\/was-ist-lan\" data-htmlarea-external=\"1\" class=\"button\">To the &#8220;What is LAN?&#8221; article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After kicking off the interface series two weeks ago with the &#8220;What is LAN?&#8221; article, we continue today with the next in the series. The USB port is part of everyday life for all of us: whether it&#8217;s a wired or wireless mouse, charging a smartphone or simply connecting a USB stick to the computer. What exactly is behind the ubiquitous USB? What are the differences between the various specifications such as USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 Gen 2? We&#8217;ll tell you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-know-how"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spo-comm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spo-comm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spo-comm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spo-comm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spo-comm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spo-comm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16400,"href":"https:\/\/spo-comm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7907\/revisions\/16400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spo-comm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spo-comm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spo-comm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spo-comm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}