Number 214 - March 2001

USB to Dominate PC and Peripheral Markets
Sept/Oct 2000 eBLUENOTES San Francisco PCUG
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., September 11, 2000 -Already ubiquitous on new PCs, the Universal Serial Bus (USB) will soon be the dominant interface between PCs and peripherals, according to Cahners In-Stat Group (www.instat.com). The high-tech market research firm finds that USB is already present in 99% of PCs shipping today, and by 2004, about 750 million USB-equipped desktop and notebook PCs will be in use. Shipments of USB-enabled peripherals will grow to an estimated 141% in 2000 and an average of 55% per year through 2004.     Video cameras and scanners represent the majority of peripherals that are equipped with USB today. In 1999, 54% of video cameras and 38% of scanners shipped with USB ports. The USB standard will also be incorporated into printers, monitors, keyboards, mice, analog and digital modems, stand-alone hubs, external storage drives and other peripherals. In-Stat predicts that by 2004, 88% of scanners shipped will feature USB technology, as will the majority of peripherals. According to Robyn Bergeron, Industry Analyst for In-Stat's Computing and Internet Research Service, "USB 1.1 is substantially faster than legacy PC interfaces such as parallel, serial and PS/2 types. The next USB standard, USB 2.0, will operate as much as 40 times faster than USB 1.1, and will be capable of supporting multiple isochronous devices such as digital video cameras and digital speakers.	USB 1.1 technology will hence be rendered insufficient. USB 2.0 performance will compare favorably with the throughput of the IEEE 1394 bus, a competing technology that will have a bigger impact in the consumer electronics industry than in the PC industry." In-Stat has also found that:   USB 2.0 products will become available in the third or fourth quarter of 2000 and will ramp up quickly over the next few years. Intel, however, is not expected to integrate 2.0 into core logic chip sets until the third quarter of 2001. Other core logic chip set suppliers are expected to deliver USB 2.0 two to three quarters later than Intel.   While waiting for 2.0 integration, most PC OEMs will offer at least a few models over the next couple of years with USB 2.0 based on a motherboard with a discrete host, or an add-in PCI board. This will present a large opportunity for component manufacturers such as Lucent, NEC and Philips to sell millions of USB 2.0 host controllers.   PC OEMs currently include both USB and legacy interfaces in most designs, but plan to phase out legacy interfaces to reduce costs. Most will have at least one legacy-free model by the end of 2000.
Number 214 - March 2001