USB3 deal for ARC

Chip designer Initio is to use the ARC600 configurable core for a family of USB 3.0 and solid state drive (SSD) controllers. The ARC600 core, developed by ARC International of the UK, will be embedded within USB 3.0 bridge controllers and SSD controllers to provide a Serial ATA2 to USB 3.0 Bridge and/or individual SATA2 and USB 3.0 outputs, replacing an 8051 core. The ARC600 also has the advantage of occupying the same silicon area and operating at the same level of power as the 8051 it replaces.
The USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed USB) market is expected to begin shipping as discrete silicon this year with broad deployment of SuperSpeed USB-enabled products expected in 2010 according to market research firm In-Stat. The interface will target applications requiring high rates and volumes of data transfer, such as external storage, consumer electronics, and communications devices with increasing amounts of storage. The replacement potential for USB 3.0 is enormous. In-Stat counts more than 2.6 billion USB-enabled devices shipped in 2007 and expects annual shipment growth of USB-enabled devices through 2012 to be 8.3 percent. SSD unit shipments will also enjoy strong growth. IDC predicts a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 76 percent from 2007-2012.
"We're extremely pleased with the performance of the ARC 600 in our USB 3.0 chip design," said Jui Liang CEO at Initio Corp. "The core provides just the right silicon area and power consumption for the solid state disk controller and USB 3.0 application. It has more than enough processing power to handle the 5.0 Gbit/s data rate of USB 3.0 as well as the more complex USB 3.0 control logic."
Initio is a leading ASIC supplier for storage applications with offices in Taiwan, USA, and China. Initio's product lines including interconnect bridge controllers for USB, Firewire 400/800, eSATA, SATA 1.5G/3G, and SSD controllers.