Thursday, May 19th 2022
ASMedia to Launch USB4 Host-Controllers This Year
Taiwanese ASMedia appears to become the first peripheral chipset company to launch a USB4 host-controller chipset, based on reports from an event the company held this week. ASMedia is at least the first company to get certified by the USB-IF, as its ASM4242 host-controller is the first of its kind to get certified. The ASM4242 was certified alongside the ASM2464PD device controller, although it's unclear exactly what type of device controller this is, but the PD in the model name indicates that it has native support for USB PD power delivery, without the need of any additional chips. This should allow for simpler implementation, as well as it would be saving some PCB space that the extra components no longer take up.
The ASM4242 is said to have a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface and does as such support up to 64 Gbps of bandwidth. As this is a two port controller, it's still not quite enough to enable both ports to operate at the full 40 Gbps that USB4 Gen 3x2 supports, but it should be enough for most consumer implementations. ASMedia has also added support for DP Alt Mode and USB4 is of course also backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 3. ASMedia is already sampling its partners. We should hopefully get a better look at what ASMedia is working on next week, but DigiTimes mentions that ASMedia has also developed PCIe 5.0 controllers of some kind and have finished the tape-out of said products.
Sources:
Apple Daily, DigiTimes
The ASM4242 is said to have a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface and does as such support up to 64 Gbps of bandwidth. As this is a two port controller, it's still not quite enough to enable both ports to operate at the full 40 Gbps that USB4 Gen 3x2 supports, but it should be enough for most consumer implementations. ASMedia has also added support for DP Alt Mode and USB4 is of course also backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 3. ASMedia is already sampling its partners. We should hopefully get a better look at what ASMedia is working on next week, but DigiTimes mentions that ASMedia has also developed PCIe 5.0 controllers of some kind and have finished the tape-out of said products.
33 Comments on ASMedia to Launch USB4 Host-Controllers This Year
Didn't go into too much of the politics bit, but as Intel makes Thunderbolt, which is now a superset of of USB4 if you'd like, as well as being one of the major companies in the USB-IF that dictates what goes into future USB standards, it's all a bit messy.
USB4 is a fairly open standard at least, but as so many of these "standards" it has a lot of optional parts.
The article should be up soon.
On desktop side, it's curious that upcoming Zen 4 CPUs and chipset do not natively support USB4. Raptor Lake chipset does not support it either. The only solution in town is currently 4242 chip for motherboards.
I am eager to see which Rembrandt laptop vendor is going to be the first to supply USB4 port with 40 Gbps taking all three protocols from APU itself and adding only PD chip in-between.
Thunderbolt 4 annoys me as it does not support FreeSync.
I am aslo curious about eDP 1.5 connector to monitor display. It does not seem new gen of CPUs have it as yet. No one advertises it.
If someone had to design an ASM4242 PCIe Gen4 add in card, would it make sense to add 2 x DP RX ports on this card?
The ASM4242 design allows 2 x DP ports to come in from the Graphics Chip (internally) - This would give this theoretical add-in card internal DP input to alternatively output video through the USB-C Connector.
Trying to find a plausible use model since most desktops already have a DP output.
Thanks.