USB
USB is one of the most populated portable drive compare to others, like floppy disk, CDs…etc. It is like iPhone games compare to wii, play-station, x-box games. It’s small portable and easy to carry.
USB1.0 is released in January 1996, it is capable of transfer data at a rate of 1.5~12mbit/s, however only a few products meet the market demand, because of the lack in essence of power and time.
As USB2.0 comes out in April 2000, USB is capable of transferring in 60MB/s, but was unable to perform such Hi-speed due to the problem that is with NAND flash. NAND flash uses “floating-gate transistors”, “Manufacturers try to maximize the amount of usable storage by shrinking the size of the transistor below the size where they can be made reliably, to the size where further reductions would increase the number of faults faster than it would increase the total storage available.”
Long story short, the year of 2000 is also when USB is starting to sell in commercials by Trek Technology and IBM. At the time, the USB only have 8MB storage which is 5 times the capacity of a flappy disk. This is one major step for USB to start dominate the portable drive market.
Of course, there were a lot of companies got in lawsuit due to the patents, including PNY Technologies, Lenovo, Aigo, Sony and Taiwan’s Acer. Many companies start to produce USB disregarding the copy rights. USB starts to flow into the market, including the ones with bad qualities. At the time, most of the USB doesn’t have the capability of what’s written in the description.
However, USB didn’t stop here. In 2008/11/17, USB3.0 is officially promoted, which increased the transmission speed to 5Gbit/s; that is 10 times more than USB2.0(480Mbit/s). Such improvement have reduced the transferring time, and power consumption. Up to 2011 April, the version for USB still stayed in 3.0.
Now, to understand better about USB, there are parts to it.
1. USB connector
2. USB mass storage controller device
3. Test points – while manufacturing, these test pins will load in codes into microprocessor
4. Flash memory chip
5. Crystal oscillator – a material to create an electrical signal with very precise frequency.
6. LED
7. Write-Protect switch(optional)
8. Space for second flash memory chip.
USB is a commonly seem product everywhere now, school, work, business, education, maybe not film, video game yet, but the possibility in the future is very high.
USB can be used in a vest area of technology, including PC, apple, and let’s not forget about games like wii, psp, x-box…etc.
The capability of such product is un-imaginable; people can carry 32G files with the USB size of 2 fingers, instead of carrying a whole drive.
Even as the technology has advanced so much, a touch screen or other fancy stuffs for USB is just seemed not necessary. A USB is made to be simple and easy to carry. However, artists came in and start to design different USBs for such a great invention that has brought down to us.
USB definitely have a lot of positive user experience for its convince to carry and transferring files. Back in the dark days, business people use to carry the whole lap top with them, at the time it is the most comfort they can get. There is also another way to transfer files through the internet, however, the upload can take up hours and if the net went down, the whole process terminates. USB as an individual hard drive is light and doesn’t take up much spaces, with a hand full, you can grab at least up to 10 USBs; a handful of 320G files. That’s how much capacity your hand can withhold.
However, on the downside there is also a dis-advantage for USB. Before USB become more associate with computers, users used to have install softwares to let the computer acknowledge the existence of USB and have access to it. However, the problem is fixed as the innovation of computers keep advancing. As USB become smaller and smaller, people tend to forget to take it and left it on PC. Major files losses happen, because of carelessness.
Bibliography
Review from expert
Yan. "Google Patents." Google. US, 26 Feb. 2004. Web. 7 June 2011. <http://www.google.ca/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATAPP10223989&id=HSmeAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=USB&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false>.
Images
Google. Web. 9 June 2011. <http://www.google.ca/search?um=1>.
Google Image 10 June 2011 <http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=carrying%20a%20PC&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=992l37285l0l22l20l3l3l3l0l196l1427l7.5&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1680&bih=830&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi>
Definition
"Flash Memory." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 9 June 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory>.
"Crystal Oscillator." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 9 June 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_oscillator>.
History
"USB Flash Drive." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 8 June 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive>.
"Universal Serial Bus." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 8 June 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_2.0>.
"USB Modules." Futurlec, The Electronic Components and Semiconductor Superstore. Web. 15 June 2011. <http://www.futurlec.com/USB.shtml>.
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