Fujitsu has 3 certified USB 3.0-SATA bridge ICs

BANGALORE, INDIA: Fujitsu Semiconductor Asia today announced that another member of its growing family of USB 3.0-SATA bridge ICs, the MB86E50, has passed USB-IF compliance testing and is now certified as compliant with the SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) standard by the USB Implementers Forum.

The certification of the MB86E50 brings Fujitsu to three certified USB 3.0-SATA bridge ICs along with the MB86C30 and MB86C31, said a press release.

Earlier, Fujitsu USB 3.0-SATA bridge IC, MB86C31, had also passed USB-IF compliance testing conducted by the USB Implementers Forum.

Like the MB86C31, MB86E50 also integrates a 32-bit RISC MPU, and comes with available hardware-based high-speed encryption, the release added. Both the MB86C31 and MB86E50 deliver throughput rates up to 5Gbps, permit hot plugging of devices, and support the USB-attached SCSI (UAS) and Bulk-only Transport (BOT) protocols.

Both chips also offer full legacy support for high-speed USB (480Mbps) and full-speed USB (12Mbps) devices, as well as for ATA, SATA Gen2i (3Gbps) and SATA Gen1i (1.5Gbps) drives.

Fujitsu said the MB86E50 series supports RAID 0 (striping) and RAID 1 (mirroring) as well as JBOD (“just a bunch of disks”) and dual LUN configurations and is available in a compact 68-pin QFN (0.4mm pitch, 8mm x 8mm) package.

“SuperSpeed USB is an incredible advancement of the USB technology that consumers know and love, and we’re excited to witness broad industry support for SuperSpeed USB technology,” stated Jeff Ravencraft, president and chairman, USB-IF.

He said the growing number of certified SuperSpeed USB products and devices in the market is a clear indication of intense interest in, and momentum behind SuperSpeed USB.

“The MB86E50 is the third of our USB 3.0-SATA bridge ICs to be awarded compliance certification by the USB Implementers Forum,” said Yoshi Masuda, senior manager of marketing, Fujitsu Semiconductor America. “We continue to win designs for external drives and mass storage systems globally with these new products, as customers value the performance benefits provided by the USB 3.0 specification,” he added.