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USB or Universal Serial Bus was first invented in January, 1996. The
research process was started in 1994 by a small group with members from
companies like Microsoft, Intel, Sony, NEC and Compaq to develop a
common connector for external devices of a PC. USB is a medium through
which the connectivity of the host controller and the peripheral can be
established. The main aim of USB is to replace the different parallel
and serial ports which are used to connect all kinds of peripheral to
the PC like the printers, mice, keyboards, digital cameras and media
players like external hard drives, flash drives and even entertainment
devices like DVD players. USB became the standard mode of connectivity
for these peripherals. Reason behind the design of USB
USB was especially designed for personal computers but soon it became
common for other devices like smart phones, mobile phones, PDAs, video
game consolers, power cord for charging an AC adapter plugged into the
wall plug. Nearly, 2 billion USB devices are sold every year and more
than 6 billions are sold until today. USB design is standardized by “USB
Implementers Forum (USB-IF)”, which is a common body that follows
industry standards set by the top most companies from the computer and
electronics industries.
Some of the most famous members of the body include Hewlett Packard,
Apple Inc., Sony, Agere, Intel, NEC and Microsoft.
USB was first introduced in 1996 with the USB 1.0 specification. It also
helps to simplify the software configurations of all the devices that
are connected to USB and allow greater bandwidths for the connected
external devices.
The development
The original specification of USB 1.0 had a bandwidth for data
transfer of 12 Mbps. Then the USB 2.0 was introduced in April, 2000.
USB-IF standardized it at the end of 2001. With an intension to make a
new USB version with a higher data rate than the 1.0 specification,
Lucent Technologies, Philips, Hewlett Packard, Intel and NEC came
forward and joined together to take the step.
Some time back, the most advanced version of USB, the USB 3.0 was
introduced in 2009. This version offers faster data transfer rates. USB
devices with USB 3.0 standards are yet to be launched.
The man behind USB
Ajay V. Bhatt, he is the co-inventor of USB. He joined Intel
Corporation team in 1990 and holds around 10 U.S. patents. He has been a
part of development of popular technologies such as USB, Platform Power
management architecture, Accelerated Graphics Port, PCI Express and
various chipset enhancements.
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