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GENERATORS, BACKUP POWER & BATTERIES T


he USB interface is ubiquitous. We find it everywhere from our laptops, our smartphones, in our cars, and on our smart TV. Initially designed to advance peripheral connectivity


beyond legacy serial and parallel methods, the power delivery capability for operation and charging have grown considerably. Like plugging an appliance plug into the AC mains, USB is a utility service; it is often taken for granted, whether for charging one of our many consumer tech devices or transferring a file. USB works! Today, the USB-C connector is far more than for connectivity and charging; it is a popular method of connecting many different peripherals, for example, an external monitor to a laptop. This article will uncover how pervasive the


USB interface has become, how the standard has evolved, and the changes in the USB connector type.


USB EVERYWHERE It is easy to underestimate the profound impact of the USB interface on our adoption and daily interaction with technology. From its early beginnings over two decades ago, we have become as familiar with USB connectors as a door key. Many USB plugs are plugged in and forgotten, such as a keyboard for a desktop computer. Others may be plugged in several times a day, a smartphone into a car's infotainment system. At night, many of us plug our smartphones, fitness trackers, and tablets into a USB-equipped AC line socket to charge overnight, ready for the next day. USB sockets are now increasingly more likely used for the power delivery capabilities than purely for data transfer; such is the dependence we have on USB.


USB EVOLUTION The first universal serial bus (USB) specification, USB 1.0, was released in 1996 by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF). Established by leading hardware vendors of that era, Compaq, DEC, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Nortel, USB grew out of the need to establish a standard method of connecting peripherals to computers. The explosive growth of desktop computers and peripheral accessories, everything from external hard disks, keyboards, mice, printers, webcams, and portable media players, led to many different, and sometimes proprietary, ways of connecting them. No connection standard also limited market growth for the many independent peripheral manufacturers. In the mid-1990s, the usual methods of connecting peripherals included the popular RS232 serial interface and the parallel Centronics interface - neither of which provided any power delivery capability and required technical knowledge to configure. Other connector types included the IBM PS/2, DIN, and SCSI. From the outset, the USB specification


required a consumer-friendly interface. That meant it needed to be self-configuring and hot- swappable, permitting devices to be plugged in and removed without interrupting the host


USB: ANSWERING ALL YOUR CONNECTIVITY AND POWER DELIVERY REQUIREMENTS


By Mark Patrick, Mouser Electronics


Figure 1 - USB connector by USB specification (Source: Wikipedia)


computer's operation. Almost all the intended attached peripherals required power to operate, so the USB 1.0 specification established the 5VDC / 0.5A / 2.5W capability. Powering a peripheral also removed the need for additional power supplies and cables. USB also specified a small number of host and peripheral connector types. The electrical specification couldn't have been more straightforward; it uses a four-wire cable, two wires for power, and a twisted pair for data. The first decade of USB adoption saw


multiple types proliferate, although many of these have now become deprecated. Sometimes the connector specification, e.g., Type A, becomes confused with the bus specification, for example, USB 3.1 - See Figure 1. Over the years, the USB specification has


continued to evolve in data signaling transfer rates and power delivery capabilities. The initial USB 1.0 specification established two differential signaling rates of 12Mbits/s and 1.5Mbits/s. To keep technical terminology to a minimum for


18 NOVEMBER 2023 | FACTORY&HANDLINGSOLUTIONS


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