One of the problems with low power devices such as smartphones and tablets is that you have limited options when it comes to the bus that the various chips use to communicate with each other. Most devices use fairly slow interfaces such as GPIO, HSIC or various MIPI interfaces rather than something like PCI Express that you'd find a PC. Now it looks like the USB-IF wants to replace these chipset interconnects with USB 3.0.
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Beyond GPIO and the MIPI interfaces, the good old USB interface is of course also widely implemented as well as SDIO, but even these interfaces are relatively slow as a chip to chip interconnect. As such, something faster is needed and although it might sound like a crazy idea at first to move the USB 3.0, the USB-IF is working together with the MIPI alliance to make this a reality and is even relying on the M-PHY physical layer developed by the MIPI alliance. Furthermore the HSIC interface was based on USB 2.0 so it's logical to build on that standard and as such the USB 3.0 interface will be known as SSIC or Super Speed Inter-Chip.
USB 3.0 to be used as chip interconnect?
Posted on Monday, November 21 2011 @ 21:17 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
VR Zone reports the USB-IF wants to position USB 3.0 as a chip to chip interconnect, full details over here.