USB 3.2 Specification Shows Type-C Cables Will Reach 2GBps speeds

The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) has released the specifications for USB 3.2 and they look good. The biggest change we saw is that the new specification uses two-lane operation on existing USB Type-C cables to provide maximum data transfer speeds to 2GBps. That isn’t gigabits per second, but rather gigabytes per second! The original USB standard was a single lane solution, so moving to a dual-lane design on USB 3.2 is a pretty big deal.

To get this performance increase, a new USB 3.2 host must be used with a new USB 3.2 device and the appropriate certified USB Type-C cable (SuperSpeed+ USB 10Gbps-certified). Now that the organization has defined multi-lane operation for new USB 3.2 hosts and devices designs of new products is one step closer to reality. We can’t wait for USB 3.2 as we are tired of people getting confused with USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB Gen 2!

Key characteristics of the USB 3.2 solution include:
Two-lane operation using existing USB Type-C cables
Continued use of existing SuperSpeed USB physical layer data rates and encoding techniques
Minor update to hub specification to address increased performance and assure seamless transitions between single and two-lane operation