NEC Electronics on Monday announced the world’s first SuperSpeed USB 3.0 controller that will be able to power USB devices with high-speed data transfer support. NEC aims its controller at PC, ExpressCard, docking station and server applications.

NEC’s The µPD720200 device is a host controller for PCs and other digital devices, and is based on the new version of the SuperSpeed USB standard that supports the world's fastest USB transfer speeds of up to 5Gb/s of data, which is 10 times faster than previous USB 2.0 transfer speeds. The NEC Electronics device, as well as the standard, is fully backward compatible with the USB 2.0, 1.1 and 1.0 versions of the USB standard.

As a member of the USB Implementers Forum since 1996, NEC Electronics has played a leading role both in defining the USB standards and in developing USB technology. In 2000, the company launched the µPD720100, the world's first USB 2.0-compliant host controller chip. It has also developed hub controllers and an extensive lineup of other USB devices, all of which are certified to display the USB logo. As a result, the company has won the trust of the marketplace and shipped 161 million USB devices as of March 2009.

Samples of NEC Electronics' µPD720200 host controller are expected to be available in June 2009 at $15 each, along with free Windows device driver software. Monthly production is expected to reach approximately one million units in September 2009.

NEC Electronics expects the market for USB 3.0 products to begin a rapid expansion in 2010.

Tags: NEC, USB