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In-Stat: USB Expected To Dominate As PC, Peripheral Interface

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. — Already ubiquitous on new PCs, the Universal Serial Bus (USB) will soon be the dominant interface between PCs and peripherals, according to Cahners In-Stat Group (www.instat.com).

The high-tech market research firm finds that USB is already present in 99 percent of PCs shipping today, and by 2004, about 750 million USB-equipped desktop and notebook PCs will be in use. Shipments of USB-enabled peripherals will grow to estimated 141 percent in 2000 and an average of 55 percent per year through 2004.

Video cameras and scanners represent the majority of peripherals that are equipped with USB today. In 1999, 54 percent of video cameras and 38 percent of scanners shipped with USB ports. The USB standard will also be incorporated into printers, monitors, keyboards, mice, analog and digital modems, stand-alone hubs, external storage drives and other peripherals.

In-Stat, which is owned by the same parent company that publishes TWICE, predicts that by 2004, 88 percent of scanners shipped will feature USB technology, as will the majority of peripherals.

According to Robyn Bergeron, Industry Analyst for In-Stat’s Computing and Internet Research Service, “USB 1.1 is substantially faster than legacy PC interfaces such as parallel, serial and PS/2 types. The next USB standard, USB 2.0, will operate as much as 40 times faster than USB 1.1 and will be capable of supporting multiple isochronous devices such as digital video cameras and digital speakers.

“USB 1.1 technology will hence be rendered insufficient. USB 2.0 performance will compare favorably with the throughput of the IEEE 1394 bus, a competing technology that will have a bigger impact in the consumer electronics industry than in the PC industry.”

In-Stat has also found that USB 2.0 products will become available in the third or fourth quarter this year and will ramp up quickly over the next few years. Intel, however, is not expected to integrate 2.0 into core logic chipsets until third-quarter 2001. Other core logic chip-set suppliers are expected to deliver USB 2.0 two to three quarters later than Intel.

While waiting for 2.0 integration, most PC OEMs will offer at least a few models over the next couple of years with USB 2.0 based on a motherboard with a discrete host or an add-in PCI board. This will present a large opportunity for component manufacturers such as Lucent, NEC and Philips to sell millions of USB 2.0 host controllers.

PC OEMs currently include both USB and legacy interfaces in most designs, but plan to phase out legacy interfaces to reduce costs. Most will have at least one legacy-free model by the end of 2000.

The report, USB: Quest for the “Universal” PC Connection (#CY0001MI), examines the market for USB PC hosts and PC peripheral devices. Separate forecasts for desktop and notebook PC shipments, along with the installed base for each, are provided.

In addition, separate forecasts are included for several USB PC peripheral devices, such as scanners, printers, monitors, keyboards, mice and video cameras. The report also contains an overall USB PC peripheral device shipment forecast, as well as forecasts for low-speed (1 Mbps), high-speed (12 Mbps), and USB 2.0 (480 Mbps) implementations.

To purchase this report or for more information, please visit http://www. instat.comcatalog/cat-cy.htm#cy0001mi or contact Matt Woods at (617) 630-2139 or mail to:[email protected]. The report price is $2,995.

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