Intel denies it's withholding USB 3.0

Last week some sites accused Intel of withholding the USB 3.0 specification to some of its competitors like AMD, NVIDIA and VIA and a couple of days later there was even a rumour that the latter ones are working on a secondary USB 3.0 spec.

However, according to a new Intel blog post by Nick Knupffer those allegations are lies, he says Intel is investing heavily into an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology and adds that NVIDIA and AMD will need to be a bit more patient until this "Dummies Guide" is finalized:

No Intel isn’t holding back the specification, the whole point of Intel investing heavily (gazillions of dollars and bazillions of man hours) into creating this ‘Dummies Guide’ is to enable the industry to start building USB 3.0 into their silicon as soon as possible, so why would Intel purposefully delay? One danger however of distributing an unfinished spec is the risk of incompatible hardware down the line, leading to a right mess. As an Intel specification Intel has the responsibility to insure that specifications we deliver to the industry are fully developed and mature enough for others to use. The Intel host controller spec is expected to be unveiled to the industry as soon as possible, in the second half of the year. The impatience of our fellow chipset-makers (as described in the press) to leverage Intel’s investment and begin to design great USB 3.0 supporting devices of their own is however very encouraging and should aid a fast USB 3.0 adoption ramp.

Could anyone invest the necessary time and money to create such a host controller specification? Of course they could – but with Intel’s Industry stewardship in sharing our spec the industry doesn’t have to make the additional time and resource commitment.