ASMedia Leads with USB 80 Gbps and 120 Gbps Technology, PCIe Gen 5 Expands Transmission Capabilities

[Nomad76]

Under the theme "Incredible Speed, Exceeding the Limit," ASMedia showcased its latest USB4 80 Gbps, 120 Gbps, and PCIe Gen 5 physical layer chips at Computex 2024. This demonstration highlighted ASMedia's leading position in the high-speed transmission field and outlined a one-stop solution for high-speed transmission, efficient charging, and multi-device connectivity for future smart working environments.

USB4 redefines data transfer speed
Computex Taipei 2024, ASMedia unveiled its world-leading USB4 80 Gbps and 120 Gbps physical layers, paving the way for the transfer of massive data and high-resolution videos in seconds, significantly improving work efficiency and user convenience. USB4's backward compatibility ensures seamless connection with existing USB devices.





PCIe Gen 5 empowers AI servers

PCIe Gen 5 is another key advancement by ASMedia in the high-speed interface domain. The PCIe Gen 5 physical layer showcased this year caters to the high-performance computing and big data processing demands of traditional and AI servers, further enhancing transmission speed, reducing latency, and supporting more high-performance devices.

ASMedia expands product lineup

ASMedia will sample multi-lane PCIe Gen 4 Packet Switches by the end of 2024 and will showcase the FPGA platform of the USB4 Dock at CES 2025. This USB4 Dock supports multifunctional workstations, offering up to 40 Gbps transmission speed and up to 240 W power delivery, with sampling expected in 2025.

USB4 Dock: A versatile connectivity hub

The USB4 Dock will support multiple integrated interfaces, including USB, HDMI, DisplayPort, and Ethernet ports. Users can connect all devices with just one USB Type-C or Thunderbolt 4 cable, supporting up to 8K resolution (UHBR 20), providing richer and more diverse external applications. Additionally, the USB4 Dock offers charging capabilities, providing a convenient charging solution for multiple devices.

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[Sunny and 75]

Interesting!

 

[billEST]

remember me the price of thunderbolt 4 cable and dock ?

 

[Wirko]

The expansion from 80 Gbit/s to 120 Gbit/s works by making one (or two?) of the four unidirectional lanes bidirectional. It's an interesting and useful concept and I can't see why it couldn't also be used in PCIe interfaces. Patent issues?

 

[Tigerfox]

It was always obvious to me that USB4v2 would need PCIe Gen5 Upstream. While 80Gbps on a 64Gpbs upstream-port (Gen4x4) may be the same acceptable bottleneck as 40Gbps on 32Gbps (TB3/4 on Gen3x4 until now), 128Gbps unidirectional makes no sense with this kind of bottleneck. Im still puzzled why Intel made TB5 on Barlow Ridge only Gen4x4.

However, even though Raphael and Granite Ridge offer 24 Lanes Gen5 and thus 2x Gen5x4 next to a Gen5x16 and Arrow Lake will offer 20 Lanes Gen5, there are very few X670/B650E-boards that offer 2x8 Gen5 and nearly no boards that offer one Gen5x4-slot (and even than, it's mostly shared with the x16, not with an M.2). This seems not to be any different on the new X870(E)-boards or even worse, since the mandatory ASM4242 USB4-controller seems to be linked to the CPU instead of the chipset on some boards, probably because especially X870 offers very few Gen4 lanes.

So there will be very few boards in this generation and the upcoming that will be able to use a USB4v2 AIC without sacrificing the x16-slot. But alas, who could have foreseen a Gen5x4-slot might become useful in the near future.

 

[TheLostSwede]

remember me the price of thunderbolt 4 cable and dock ?

USB4 cables are already very affordable. Picked one up for around $12-13 last year and yes it works with Thunderbolt and supports 100 W USB PD.
As for USB4 docks, there aren't many on the market as yet and they're not as cheap as they should be.

The expansion from 80 Gbit/s to 120 Gbit/s works by making one (or two?) of the four unidirectional lanes bidirectional. It's an interesting and useful concept and I can't see why it couldn't also be used in PCIe interfaces. Patent issues?

It's done in the same way as for Thunderbolt 5, whenever that is launching, but yes, all four pairs are used, rather than just two. 120 Gbps is asymmetrical and you get 40 Gbps the other direction.

128Gbps unidirectional makes no sense with this kind of bottleneck. Im still puzzled why Intel made TB5 on Barlow Ridge only Gen4x4.

It's 120 Gbps and it's intended not for data, but for DP Alt mode to drive high resolution displays or multiple displays. The DP data is muxed in and doesn't affect the PCIe data bandwidth available.

However, even though Raphael and Granite Ridge offer 24 Lanes Gen5 and thus 2x Gen5x4 next to a Gen5x16 and Arrow Lake will offer 20 Lanes Gen5, there are very few X670/B650E-boards that offer 2x8 Gen5 and nearly no boards that offer one Gen5x4-slot (and even than, it's mostly shared with the x16, not with an M.2). This seems not to be any different on the new X870(E)-boards or even worse, since the mandatory ASM4242 USB4-controller seems to be linked to the CPU instead of the chipset on some boards, probably because especially X870 offers very few Gen4 lanes.

The ASM4242 connects straight to four of the CPU lanes, as would a future 80 Gbps version of that chip do. In other words, one M.2 slot will be sacrificed in favour of USB4. See below. A new chipset with PCIe 5.0 support would connect via PCIe 5.0 to the Ryzen 7000 CPUs, so upgrading the motherboard would get older CPUs full PCIe 5.0, which would solve the theoretical problem, but yes, there are chipset limitations now if you want to go the way of hooking up the USB4 host controller via the chipset, but that's not recommended by AMD even now.

So there will be very few boards in this generation and the upcoming that will be able to use a USB4v2 AIC without sacrificing the x16-slot. But alas, who could have foreseen a Gen5x4-slot might become useful in the near future.

This is correct, as an add-in card would have to tap in to the CPU lanes somehow on current Prom21 based boards.

 

[Tigerfox]

It's 120 Gbps and it's intended not for data, but for DP Alt mode to drive high resolution displays or multiple displays. The DP data is muxed in and doesn't affect the PCIe data bandwidth available.

Yes, That makes sense. I meant 120Gbps. I was in powers of two-mode because of PCIe-bandwith. 128Gbps is PCIe5.0x4

The ASM4242 connects straight to four of the CPU lanes, as would a future 80 Gbps version of that chip do. In other words, one M.2 slot will be sacrificed in favour of USB4.

That's not what I was talking about. There will be Add-In cards for USB4v2 like there are for USB4 with ASM4242 now. As per this news, the ASM4242-successor will connect to PCIe5.0x4, which makes sense to not bottleneck 80Gbps throughbout and even 120Gbps (it may be intended for combined data and video, but could be used for pure data, too).

AM5 has enough gen5-lanes to offer one gen5x4-PCIe-slot and one M.2 gen5x4 independent from the Gen5x16 (the PCIe-slot can be shared with a second M.2) to acommodate such a USB4v2-AIC. But no X670/B650E board apart from MSI X670E Ace/Godlike/Carbon offers an independent gen5-slot. The very few others that do have more than the gen5x16 slot are shared with that, so GPU will be limited to x8.
On X870(E) it will not be better, because the mandatory ASM4242 seems to be connected to the CPU instead of the chipset sometimes, which eats up 4 gen5-lanes for a gen4 controller.

Thus nearly no current and upcoming mainstream board will be able to really use a USB4v2 AIC. I doubt we will see new boards designed just for that (with USB4v2 onboard instead of ASM4242 at most), so USB4v2 will be usable only with X870- and Z890-successor boards.

 

[TheLostSwede]

AM5 has enough gen5-lanes to offer one gen5x4-PCIe-slot and one M.2 gen5x4 independent from the Gen5x16 (the PCIe-slot can be shared with a second M.2) to acommodate such a USB4v2-AIC. But no X670/B650E board offers an independent gen5-slot. The very few that do have more than the gen5x16 slot are shared with that, so GPU will be limited to x8.
On X870(E) it will not be better, because the mandatory ASM4242 seems to be connected to the CPU instead of the chipset sometimes, which eats up 4 gen5-lanes for a gen4 controller.

And that won't change, as you've pointed out, so yeah, until there's a PCIe 5.0 chipset for AM5, it's unlikely we'll see USB4 V2.0 add-in cards.
It's not a sometimes, the ASM4242 will always go via the CPU, as that's how AMD has told the board makers it has to be connected. I'm not sure if this is due to some kind of limitation for DP Alt-mode or just AMD making sure there won't be a bottleneck somewhere.

Thus nearly no current and upcoming mainstream board will be able to really use a USB4v2 AIC. I doubt we will see new boards designed just for that (with USB4v2 onboard instead of ASM4242 at most), so USB4v2 will be usable only with X870- and Z890-successor boards.

It's not likely that we'll see the actual host controllers until then either. Admittedly the ASM4242 was nearly two years late, a lot of which was due to certification related issues and as I have explained, that was mainly related to certain expected knowledge by the company who "donated" the USB4 spec to the USB-IF.
That said, I don't think we'll see the ASM5252 or whatever they'll call it until 2026.
On the same topic, where is Thunderbolt 5? Intel was running demos last year, but there hasn't been a peep about it since then.

 

[Tigerfox]

On the same topic, where is Thunderbolt 5? Intel was running demos last year, but there hasn't been a peep about it since then.

It was mentioned alongside TB4 when Intel announced Thunderbolt share three weeks ago. I don't think it will take until 2026 before we see TB5 devices, it was introduced alongside the arrow lake platform in 2023.

 

[TheLostSwede]

It was mentioned alongside TB4 when Intel announced Thunderbolt share three weeks ago. I don't think it will take until 2026 before we see TB5 devices, it was introduced alongside the arrow lake platform in 2023.

I don't think so either, but my guess is that we'll see it in laptops maybe towards the end of this year, followed by devices and desktops next year.
At the same time, I don't think ASMedia has the ability to get their USB4 V2.0 host ready until late 2025 at best, so products 2026, since the board on display is using an FPGA and not the actual host controller. I could've gotten better info if I was at Computex, since I'm friends with one of the bosses at ASMedia and he's always happy to talk to me, even if I might not be able to write everything he tells me. Might have to pop by his office next time I'm in Taiwan.

 

[Wirko]

This is correct, as an add-in card would have to tap in to the CPU lanes somehow on current Prom21 based boards.

So it will exist as an M.2 adapter card probably.

 

[TheLostSwede]

So it will exist as an M.2 adapter card probably.

No-one has done that so far, but it's not impossible, if a tad improbable, large due to that stupid TBT cable that is needed for the GPIO or whatever.
The chip size shouldn't be a problem though, but power might be, even though the basic power output is only 7.5 Watts.

Considering there aren't a lot of passive components (based on ASMedia's development board), it's by no means impossible. There just wouldn't be any display support.

 

[akshaytolwanipython]

Did they show their usb 3.2 gen 2x2 hub like in 2023?

 

[TheLostSwede]

Did they show their usb 3.2 gen 2x2 hub like in 2023?

If you click on the 2nd picture, it clearly says so.
No-one from TPU has visited them yet though, this is a press release.