6 ms·
USB4 Specification v2.0
- cesarb 4y agoAnnouncement: https://usb.org/sites/default/files/2022-10/USB-IF%20USB%2080Gbps%20Announcement_FINAL_v2.pdf https://usb.org/sites/default/files/2022-10/USB-IF%20USB%208... Specifications released today: - USB4 Specification v2.0 <https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb4r-specification-v20 https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb4r-specification-v20> - USB Type-C® Cable and Connector Specification Release 2.2 <https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb-type-cr-cable-and-connector-specification-release-22 https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb-type-cr-cable-and-c...> - USB Power Delivery Revision 2.0 Version 1.3 and Revision 3.1 Version 1.6 <https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb-power-delivery https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb-power-delivery> Yes, they really called it "USB4 v2.0"...
- TylerE 4y agoI’m surprised they didn’t call it USB4 SuperSpeed
- Tozen 4y agoThat probably will still make it as a product name, somewhere.
- Alupis 4y agoHardware revision numbering schemes can sometimes get wonky... but it's almost as-if the USB folks live in a bubble and are completely unaware of the meme their naming scheme has become. There has got to be a more simple naming scheme that's easier to follow...
- smesla 4y ago> it's almost as-if the USB folks live in a bubble and are completely unaware of the meme their naming scheme has become. It's almost as if it was designed by a committee.
- colejohnson66 4y agoRun by the same companies that marked USB products
- booi 4y agoHi, USB committee member here. I hear your concern and I’m officially launching the USB4 v2.0 naming schema v0.5b task force to analyze the naming schema. Thank you for your concern.
- stingraycharles 4y agoSemantic versioning would be just fine here I’d say; e.g. they could have named this USB 4.1 to indicate compatibility. Alas, I suspect there are many conflicting desires here, and marketing may have something to do with it — the ability to convince customers into buying new hardware by confusing them may have something to do with it.
- bryanlarsen 4y agothat name is the spec name, the marketing names have been cleaned up and are much more sane: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/09/usb-if-says-goodbye-to-confusing-superspeed-usb-branding/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/09/usb-if-says-goodbye-...
- mortenjorck 4y ago> When those products come out, though, the USB-IF hopes they aren't introduced to consumers as "USB4 Version 2.0" or even some type of "SuperSpeed USB." After 12 years, the USB-IF no longer recommends that vendors use terms like "SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps" (for the spec called USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, for example) and instead opt for names like "USB 20Gbps." > If the USB-IF had its way, products using its new open standard will be described as "USB 80Gbps." Despite the ongoing chaos of USB-IF's technical nomenclature, it sounds like they are well aware of the problem, and the consumer-facing solution they recommend doesn’t sound bad at all.
- guiambros 4y agoMore sane indeed; glad they realized it was completely non-sense. Thanks for sharing; the post you linked is actually much better than OP's link USB4 specs.
- IshKebab 4y agoI don't think that's a great excuse. It's find for companies to have internal and external (marketing) names for the same thing, but these are both public! They have two public names for the same thing which is arguably even more confusing. Look at that article: > The USB-IF still recommends vendors label USB 2.0, which can take the form of USB-C, USB-A, USB-B, and more, as "Hi-Speed USB" with no performance indicator. > > "Hi-Speed USB has been around for over 20 years and is well established in the marketplace" They are seriously under the delusion that anyone except USB nerds has even heard of "hi-speed USB".
- throw0101c 4y ago> Revision 2.0 Version 1.3 and Revision 3.1 Version 1.6 WTF?
- Ptchd 4y agoAre we finally going to get a round connector?
- djha-skin 4y agoDoes this mean I'll have to deal with another planned-obsolescence connector? I was hoping with Moore's law flattening out that we would more or less be done with this mess. USB-C does a great job, what's wrong with it?
- dymk 4y agoNah you'll have to wait for USB5 for the new connector
- nicoburns 4y agoPretty sure this is still using the USB-C connector.
- chrisseaton 4y agoUSB-C is a connector. USB4 v2.0 is a protocol. Different things. No need to be this excited.
- stjohnswarts 4y agothis is more than most non-techie people can handle.
- Dylan16807 4y agoWell that's too bad because most ports have multiple protocol versions or capacities over the same shape.
- drzaiusx11 4y agoafaict it will still use the usb-c connector, they're just playing catch-up to thunderbolt as far as bandwidth. now you can do PCIe over USB4 just like thunderbolt. Although I haven't read the whole spec yet, likely it finally supports dual high-def monitors which USB4v1 didn't do
- eyelidlessness 4y agoGonna disagree with all of the other comments so far: yes, you’ll have to deal with another set of USB-C connectors with a slightly different capability matrix.
- nuker 4y agoIm certain it does not support USB 3 Gen 2x2 (20 Mbps) devices :(
- Dylan16807 4y agoWhy? When have they ever dropped compatibility, and what would their motivation be?
- nuker 4y agoBeats me, but that was outcome when I searched last time. It will support at 10 Mbps, not 20
- Dylan16807 4y agoWell find those results if you can, because I can't find any rules restricting what speeds can bond together in the spec. USB4 mode has a minimum speed of gen2, but that shouldn't cause any problems here. Is this supposed to be new with version 2? Wikipedia lists 2x1 and 2x2 among other speeds for USB4.
- derefr 4y agoWhat does the "4" in USB4 mean? When does it change? Why did it change fairly frequently until recently (with minor versions like 3.1), but then stop at 4? I had always assumed the number in the name was the spec version. But now the spec version is explicitly v2.0, but the "4" remains in the name. Why isn't this USB5.0? It's not like USB ports are labelled with what USB version they support or anything, such that there would be valid reasons to have a "compatibility version" that stays at 4. USB ports are just labelled/colored according to a marketing term that loosely maps to supported link speed (Hi-Speed / black, Super-Speed / blue, etc.) Is this a thing like X11 (the "11" was a protocol version number once upon a time!), where the major version in the name somehow gradually ossified and became hard to change, even as major things kept happening to the spec; and so they just gave up and made the version an opaque part of the name, and lifted the version out somewhere else?
- fabiospampinato 4y agoIt all makes sense once you understand that they are trying to confuse us as much as possible.
- wmf 4y agoLike anything, they have major versions and minor versions. USB4 was a new major version because it added Thunderbolt. USB4 2.0 (should have been USB4.1 but whatever) adds some minor changes.
- chrisseaton 4y ago> but whatever I think people are asking - what really is the 'whatever' behind this version scheme?
- rektide 4y agoUSB4 moved from a lane-switched architecture to a packet switched architecture. In USB3, for example, if you plug in a DisplayPort display via USB-C, there was an alt-mode negotiation, either 2 or 4 of the 4 lanes would switch over to become DisplayPort lanes (leaving you with either 2 or 0 lanes of USB3). Even if you have a 1080p60 (~4.3Gbps) monitor plugged in, you're still losing 20 of the 40Gbps because you're losing half the lanes. In USB4, everything (except USB1 & USB2, lol) is tunneled over USB4. If you plug a hub in to a computer, and a display (or two or three) into a hub, the displays only take as much bandwidth as they need from the total link budget. Each 1080p60 monitor is taking 4.3 of the 40Gbps (or less, if the monitor has Display Stream Compression). Same goes for devices plugged in via PCIe/Thunderbolt. There were a lot of weird architecture limitations because of the lane-switched architecture of USB3. It's more or less reason we almost never saw USB hubs with multiple USB-C ports: people would plug in a USB-C monitor, and maybe the hub could be smart enough for that, but plug in a second USB-C monitor, and now the DisplayPort lanes somehow need to serve two monitors. (This is actually achievable with DisplayPort's Multi-Stream-Transport hubs, but lack of support from Apple caused constant angst here.) With USB4 though, a hub can now just route packets, so you can imagine having multiple USB-C hubs fanning out & serving multiple displays; USB-C makes more sense now & has much less caveats under USB4.
- augustuspolius 4y agoI like the USB-C connector but wondering if there is a better way to handle the ever expanding number of different cable types that are used with this connector (SuperSpeed, Thunderbolt, etc). Switching to USB-C reduced the number of different cables I have at home but almost equally increased the number of different types of USB-C I have. Some work with my monitor, some don’t, some charge, some don’t charge, it’s a mess.
- chrisseaton 4y agoIf you want to, you can buy all 40 Gbps 240 W Thunderbolt 4 Pro USB-C cables for all use-cases, but they're literally like $100 a metre, so that'd be insane and why instead there's a variety of cheaper cables for different use-cases.
- wmf 4y agoA USB-C 3.0 100W cable is more like $20 and does everything other than Thunderbolt. The OP must have really bad luck.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- augustuspolius 4y agoExactly - it's too expensive and at this point I am not sure how future proof this investment would be. Are we going to have a new USB-C cable in a year's time that my next monitor will require?.. Edit: different devices add even more to this confusion. My MacBook Pro M1 is refusing to work with a 4K USB-C monitor even when using a Thunderbolt 4 cable. LG is convinced that it should be working just fine.
- Dylan16807 4y agoWhere the heck did you get a cable that can't charge? Unless you mean it can't go over 60 watts?
- deleted 4y ago
- diebeforei485 4y agoWhat exactly is USB4 2.0? Why isn't it called USB 4.1?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- causality0 4y agoOk so what event happened after USB 3.1 came out that made the USB committee lose their damn minds? Everything made perfect sense until then.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoLooking forward to USB4.1-C 2.0 4x4 Revision 1.1
- csense 4y agoWe once had a world where we didn't have to think very hard, and could use most cables with most devices. How do we get back to that world?