The USB Promoter Group which is an open source service announced the USB4 Specifications in Q1 of this year i.e 2019. This time USB4 adopted the Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 Protocol with 40Gbps. The Primary specifications will be the data transfer rates up to the 40Gbps, display interfaces, and power delivery. The detailed specifications will be announced in the middle of 2019 and the product may available in the early 2020 ‘s.
Key characteristics of the USB4 :
Two-lane operation using existing USB Type-C cables and up to 40 Gbps operation over 40 Gbps-certified cables
Multiple data and display protocols to efficiently share the total available bandwidth over the bus
Backward compatibility with USB 3.2, USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt 3
USB Developer Days 2019, in the second half of this year, will include detailed technical training covering the USB4 specification and the latest for USB Type-C, USB Power Delivery, and other exciting topics.
History of USB :
USB 1.0 announced in 1996 with a data rate of 12Mbps.
After that USB 2.0 came in existence in 2001 and supports 480 Mbps high-speed data which is 40X more compared to the USB 1.0
In 2009, USB 3.0 later renamed into the USB 3.2 Gen1 which is a super speed that supports 5Gbps.
The Next generation of USB 3.2 Gen 2 announced in 2014 with double the data speed and denoted the Super speed+ i.e 10Gbps.
Later in 2017, USB Gen 2X2 is announced with 20Gbps single lane with 128b/132b Encoding.
Now, this year USB promoter group announced USB4 which is adopted with Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 Protocol which supports 40Gbps data.
And also, USB4 comes with 2 lanes, each lane carries 20 Gbps simultaneously. On an overall USB4 can support up to 40Gbps.
http://www.dtstech.in/usb4-specifications-announced-adopted-intels-thunderbolt-3-protocol/