Posted on Tuesday, April 13 2010 @ 19:38 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Bit Tech
heard from Taiwanese sources that Intel has no plans to integrate USB 3.0 into its chipsets until 2012 at the earliest, and that support for SATA 6Gbps won't be integrated until late Q3 2011 in the refresh of the X58 platform.
Our sources here in Taipei tell us that Intel has no plans to integrate USB 3 into its chipsets until 2012 at the earliest - there are no new platforms due this year, and next year's roadmaps currently show none featuring USB 3. Apparently Intel plans to make a USB 3/SATA 6Gbps all-in-one chip for optional use by motherboard manufacturers on its products, however it’s currently finding it difficult to get the pin-count down to an appropriate size.
In some respects this is good news, though because it means market diversity. Companies such as Marvell, NEC, VIA and Realtek can offer alternative USB 3 and SATA 6Gbps chips, however it's something that needs to be well implemented by the motherboard designer - high bandwidth devices need a connection to match: not just a bog standard x1 PCI-E lane.
