Symwave's USB 3.0 SoC is almost ready

Could USB RAID finally be possible?

Symwave is slowly but surely releasing details about its USB 3.0 system on a chip.

The firm is at the Hot Chips conference where it discussed its USB 3.0 System-on-Chip (SoC) storage controller architecture. First mentioned in November last year, Symwave's USB 3.0 SoC is backwards compatible with previous USB incarnations but offers massive throughput gains, from USB 2.0's 480Mbps to as much as 5Gbps.

Basically that means you could transfer a DVD quality movie in less time than it takes to skip forward through the anti-piracy messages.

In a demonstration, the firm discussed the data transfer speed boosts its USB 3.0 SoC will offer and suggested that a RAID system could support up to two serial drives.

The firm announced an embedded security deal with Discretix that it claimed will offer tough encryption for devices. "Discretix's embedded security technology is both powerful and flexible. Not only can it protect storage drives from attachment to unauthorized computers, but it also supports the high transfer speeds required for USB 3.0 configurations," said Chris Thomas, Symwave's chief technology officer.

Symwave said that external storage products from OEM partners are expected later this year. Just in time for all those Windows 7 backups.