Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 2.7
Comparison of data rates for several interface standards
USB applications and principal features
The Universal Serial Bus can be used in a very wide variety of applications.
The ability to support data rates of up to 12 MB/s makes USB suitable for
applications that are demanding in terms of data throughput whilst the simplicity
of the USB interface makes it ideal for slower, low-cost peripheral devices
such as keyboards, joysticks, and mice. Finally, the ability of USB to support
multiple hubs and host controllers allows it to support more complex systems
of computers and peripheral devices.
The following table, organized by speed of data transfer, summarizes the
main applications envisaged for USB:
Speed of data transfer
Application
Examples
Low-speed
Input devices
Mice (and other pointing devices)
(up to 128 KB/s)
Keyboards
Joysticks (and other game peripherals)
Control systems
Plant and process control
Communication
Low-speed modems
Medium-speed
Communication
High-speed modems and ISDN adapters
(128 KB/s to 2 MB/s)
Input devices
Scanners, video screen grabbers
Storage devices
Removable disk drives (e.g. ZIP drives)
Multimedia
Sound cards
Instrumentation
Time, frequency, voltage measurement, etc.
Data acquisition
Measurement and recording of
temperature, humidity, stress, etc.
High-speed
Communication
Network adapters
(greater than 2 MB/s)
Storage devices
Optical drives
Multimedia
Reduced bandwidth video
