The USB-IF released a couple of new specifications recently – R2.1 for Type-C and R3.1 for USB-PD. The main update is the ‘Extended Power Range’ aspect that allows for delivery of up to 240W over Type-C setups supporting the relevant USB-PD profile.

The first USB Power Delivery (USB-PD) specification was released in 2012, and it has seen regular updates over the years. Initially, the focus was on enabling faster charging rates for smartphones and other such devices (which had been using proprietary charging schemes or the USB-BC battery charging specifications). After the release of the Type-C specifications in 2014, USB-PD became a hot topic again. In addition to charging, the attractiveness of a single port for both data and power I/O – particularly from the viewpoint of compact and slim notebooks – brought in the need to shore up the amount of power transferred between a source and a sink. Prior to the release of USB-PD R3.1, certifications from the USB-IF were in place for equipment capable of sourcing / sinking up to 100W (slightly lesser in practical circumstances). The newly released specifications refer to the modes in R3.0 as ‘Standard Power Range’ (SPR).

USB-PD R3.1 supports three charging models:

• Fixed voltage
• Programmable power supply (PPS), and
• Adjustable voltage supply (AVS).

In the fixed voltage scheme, the Standard Power Range (SPR) mode supports 3A and 5A at 5V, 9V, 15V, and 20V. The 3A configuration supports between 15 and 60W. The 5A scheme requires a specific type of cable and can supply up to 100W. The new Extended Power Range (EPR) mode supports all voltage and current combinations of SPR, and also includes 5A supply at 28V, 36V, and 48V, allowing for support up to 240W.

In the programmable power supply (PPS) scheme available in SPR mode, currents are limited by the source and the cable’s advertised capabilities. While the programmed voltage ranges track the ones in the fixed voltage scheme, the actual voltage may vary between 3.3V and 5.9V (for the 5V setting), 11V (for the 9V setting), 16V (for the 15V setting), and 21V (for the 20V setting) in steps of 20mV.

In the EPR mode, the AVS model allows for the voltage to be adjusted between 15V and one of 28V, 36V, or 48V in steps of 100mV depending on the negotiated EPR contract. The source and sink need to enter this specific EPR mode and the cable between them also needs to support EPR for these new voltages to be enabled.

EPR specifications keep safety in mind by allowing sources to scale back to 5V with a hard reset in case of unresponsive downstream sinks. The sink is also required to keep up periodic communication with ‘keep-alive’ messages to the source in this mode.

Cables supporting EPR need a compulsory electronic marking indicating EPR compatibility using ‘EPR Mode Capable’ bit set. Standard Power Range cables (SPR) support only up to 100W PD. Receptacles and cables supporting EPR need extra mechanical considerations to prevent shorting / arcing during the connection process. Towards this, the mechanical specifications of the cables as well as receptacles are getting updates. Arcing is possible during unplug operations, and this is being mitigated by length differences between the CC and VBUS pins (allowing the detection of disconnect events early enough to get the source to reduce the current prior to the full disconnection). A snubber capacitor at either cable end is recommended to help with this feature.

EPR enables supply of up to 5A at 48V, but the cables themselves need to support up to 53.65V, and the capacitors used need to be rated for 63V. The electronic marking on the cables are supposed to specify 50V/5A with visible EPR identification icons for end users.

Thumb drives sinking more than 3A or supporting USB4 operations are now mandated to respond to ‘cable identity’ queries from the host. Additional constraints / parametric adjustments have been made for cables to be fit for USB4 operations. The certification requirements for USB4 active cables have also been updated. They are now required to support Thunderbolt 3 capabilities fully (including Alternate Modes). Since these certification requirements are new, and do not specify updates for passive cables, it is possible that USB4 passive cables that support full capabilities when used with modern USB4 hosts may not operate at full speeds with legacy Thunderbolt 3 platforms.

USB-PD has enabled the use of a single Type-C port for both data and power I/O. In its previous avatar, this worked well for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets – allowing them to even double up as power banks. In parallel, advances in Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductors have enabled the creation of very efficient and compact power electronics equipment.

A Compact 100W GaN Charger

Combined with the new USB-PD specifications allowing for up to 240W of power delivery, we will soon see USB-C chargers / adapters capable of powering desktop PCs (such as the Intel NUCs – even the gaming-focused models) and All-in-Ones. Currently, these systems still use wall-warts with DC-in barrel jacks to power the internal components. With solutions in sight for this inconvenience, such powerful systems are bound to see new applications.

Source: AnandTech – USB-C Power Delivery Hits 240W with Extended Power Range

Intel’s 11th generation of Core processors have finally hit the market. If you’re looking to upgrade your gaming rig, now is the perfect time to do so. And MSI has the perfect combo with which to do so.

Source: AnandTech – Sponsored Post: Now On Sale – MPG CORELIQUID K360 & MSI Z590 Gaming Force

Today Marvell is announcing the first NVMe SSD controllers to support PCIe 5.0, and a new branding strategy for Marvell’s storage controllers. The new SSD controllers are the first under the umbrella of Marvell’s Bravera brand, which will also encompass HDD controllers and other storage accelerator products. The Bravera SC5 family of PCIe 5.0 SSD controllers will consist of two controller models: the 8-channel MV-SS1331 and the 16-channel MV-SS1333.

These new SSD controllers roughly double the performance available from PCIe 4.0 SSDs, meaning sequential read throughput hits 14 GB/s and random read performance of around 2M IOPS. To reach this level of performance while staying within the power and thermal limits of common enterprise SSD form factors, Marvell has had to improve power efficiency by 40% over their previous generation SSD controllers. That goes beyond the improvement that can be gained simply from smaller fab process nodes, so Marvell has had to significantly alter the architecture of their controllers. The Bravera SC5 controllers still include a mix of Arm cores (Cortex-R8, Cortex-M7 and a Cortex-M3), but now includes much more fixed-function hardware to handle the basic tasks of the controller with high throughput and consistently low latency.

Such an architectural shift often means sacrificing flexibility, but Marvell doesn’t expect that to be a problem thanks in large part to the Open Compute Project’s Cloud SSD specifications. Those standards go beyond the NVMe spec and define which optional features should be implemented, plus target performance and power levels for different form factors. The Cloud SSD specs were initially a collaboration between Microsoft and Facebook but have caught on in the broader market and even have the support of traditional enterprise server vendors like Dell and HP. This allows controller vendors like Marvell and SSD manufacturers to more narrowly focus their product development efforts, and to target a wider range of customers with a single hardware and firmware platform. In spite of the shift toward more fixed hardware functionality, the Bravera SC5 controllers still support a wide range of features including NVMe Zoned Namespaces (ZNS), Open Channel SSDs and Kioxia’s Software-Enabled Flash model.

In addition to being the first available PCIe 5.0 SSD controllers, the Bravera SC5 family includes the first 16-channel controller designed to fit on the EDSFF E1.S form factor, using a controller package size of 20×20 mm with peak controller power of 9.8 W. The new controllers are currently sampling to select customers, with the option of using Marvell’s firmware or developing custom firmware.

Source: AnandTech – Marvell Announces First PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD Controllers: Up To 14 GB/s

Western Digital’s G-Technology brand is well-known in multimedia production circles with products ranging from portable SSDs to multi-HDD RAID enclosures. As part of its Flash Perspective event today, the company is introducing the SanDisk Professional tag for products sold earlier under the G-Technology brand. In addition to new products targeting the prosumers and production houses, existing products are also getting speed bumps with updates in the USB interface.

With increased resolutions and frame rates, content capture on location (as well as post-processing) now deals with huge amounts of data. On the capture side, we have seen multimedia-recording equipment support new card formats such as SD Express, CFast, and CFexpress. These allow capture at speeds exceeding even SATA SSDs, with CFexpress being the current card of choice for professional capture equipment. SanDisk has traditionally played in the consumer market with various memory cards. On the CFexpress side, they have been offering the Extreme PRO lineup – however, the other products in the Extreme PRO category are often meant for the consumer base too. With SanDisk Professional, the company has introduced the PRO-CINEMA CFexpress VPG400 (with a guaranteed 400MBps write speed) for multimedia production houses with the 256GB version carrying a MSRP of $450.

Card readers that integrate into optional card docks are quite popular in the industry, allowing for simultaneous ingestion of content from multiple capture devices. One of the first products in this segment was the Thunderbolt 2-equipped Lexar Professional Workflow HR2, which we reviewed back in 2017. Though Lexar dropped the ball in terms of keeping up with the latest technology, vendors such as ATech Flash Technologies carry products such as the Blackjet TX-4DS. Equipped with a Thunderbolt 3 upstream interface, the TX-4DS supports up to 4 different swappable modules to support a range of physical media (CFast / CFexpress / XQD / Sony SxS / RED MINI-MAG / SDXC / 2.5″ SATA / M.2 PCIe etc.). Western Digital has also decided to play in this market – the SanDisk Professional PRO-READER series comes with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C interface (up to 10 Gbps) and supports different types of cards including CFast ($90), CFexpress ($100), RED MINI-MAG ($200), and CF / SD / microSD ($80).

These readers can also integrate into a 4-bay PRO-DOCK with a MSRP of $500. The Thunderbolt dock (with support for traditional USB-C hosts also) includes additional USB Type-C and Type-A ports.

In terms of product upgrades, the G-DRIVE ArmorLock SSD introduced last year with a 2TB SKU now comes with the SanDisk Professional branding and a 4TB SKU. The G-RAID and G-RAID SHUTTLE products with the enterprise HDDs are also getting updated interfaces to work with both Thunderbolt and USB hosts. The entire product portfolio is expected to hit shelves in June 2021.

The G-Technology brand has got significant traction in the professional market. However, SanDisk is better known to consumers moving into the prosumer category and SOHO / SMBs just starting out with video workflows. By retaining the G-Technology product names under the ‘SanDisk Professional’ tag, Western Digital has managed to create a unified branding for its entire portfolio of products targeting the full spectrum of content capture and post-processing markets.

Source: AnandTech – Western Digital Unveils Multimedia-Focused SanDisk Professional Portfolio

Western Digital is adding a new external SSD to their WD_BLACK product line: the WD Black D30 Game Drive SSD. The D30 is a bus-powered USB SSD offering up to 900MB/s read speeds, with capacities from 500GB to 2TB. There is also a special version for Xbox console gaming, which changes some of the drive’s trim to white instead of black and comes with a one month trial membership of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, but is otherwise functionally identical.

The new WD_BLACK D30 products fit into the WD_BLACK product line between the D10 external hard drive and the D50 Game Dock (Thunderbolt 3) with optional NVMe storage. The D30 also complements the portable drives under the WD_BLACK brand, including the P10 portable hard drive, and the P50 portable SSD that uses USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 to hit speeds of up to 2 GB/s.

The WD_BLACK D30 Game Drive SSD is available starting today with an MSRP of $89.99 for the 500GB version. The WD_BLACK D30 Game Drive SSD for Xbox is up for pre-order and will be available next month, with prices starting at $99.99 for the 500GB version.

Source: AnandTech – Western Digital Introduces WD Black D30 Game Drive External SSDs

Among several announcements today, Western Digital is introducing a new more affordable PCIe Gen4 SSD under their gaming-oriented WD Black brand (styled WD_BLACK). The new WD Black SN750 SE is not just a refresh of their existing SN750 but instead appears to be an entirely new and different drive. The SN750 SE brings PCIe Gen4 support but in other respects seems to be a downgrade compared to the SN750, and appears to have more in common with the WD Blue SN550. Based on the pictures and the few performance specifications that have been disclosed so far, the SN750 SE looks like a 4-channel DRAMless NVMe SSD, with respectable sequential read throughput but reduced sequential write throughput compared to the original SN750. Random IO performance was not included on the data sheet—not a good sign.

UPDATE: Our friends over at PCGamer have learned that WD is using the Phison E19T DRAMless controller for this drive, and the product listings are now live with a few more detailed performance specs.

The WD Black SN750 SE is intended to be the more affordable Gen4 alternative to their flagship SN850. The smaller controller, lack of DRAM, and newer NAND flash all combine to make the SN750 SE a significantly lower-power drive than its nominal predecessor, though the more interesting comparison would be against the WD Blue SN550. Write endurance ratings for the SN750 SE match the original SN750, but the 2TB model has gone missing. Pricing starts at $54.99 for the 250GB model, the midpoint between the WD Blue line and the existing WD Black products. The WD Black SN750 SE is now available for pre-order direct from Western Digital, and will be available through retailers and system integrators this summer.

This isn’t the first time that Western Digital has made a mess of the naming of their WD Black SSDs. The first generation in 2017 was simply the WD Black PCIe SSD. The next year, they released another WD Black SSD that was a huge upgrade: switching from a Marvell controller to their new in-house controller, and from 15nm planar TLC to 64L 3D TLC NAND flash memory—but the branding was confusingly similar, and the best way to tell which generation you were buying was to check if the advertised capacity was 256GB/512GB (old) or 250GB/500GB/1TB (new). In 2018 Western Digital made the most minor of refreshes by releasing the WD Black SN750; the most significant change over its predecessor was the addition of an unambiguous (until now) model number. The hardware was identical and the firmware got only a minor update, and a version with a heatsink was added. That SN750 has been overdue for an update to use 96L instead of 64L TLC, a change which Western Digital made for their OEM drives by replacing the SN720 with the SN730. But the SN750 SE isn’t the simple NAND refresh we expected based on its name, nor is it a true successor and upgrade to the SN750.

The SN750 SE should make for a great mainstream NVMe drive. Western Digital has an excellent track record for getting good performance from DRAMless NVMe SSDs, and this will probably be enough to leapfrog the recent Samsung 980. But using a name that’s so similar to such a different product is a serious disappointment.

Source: AnandTech – Western Digital Introduces WD Black SN750 SE SSD: Entry-Level PCIe Gen4

As part of their yearly developer conference, the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) also held their annual press briefing today, offering an update on the state of the organization and its standards. The star of the show, of course, was PCI Express 6.0, the upcoming update to the bus standard that will once again double its data transfer rate. PCI-SIG has been working on PCIe 6.0 for a couple of years now, and in a brief update, confirmed that the group remains on track to release the final version of the specification by the end of this year.

The most recent draft version of the specification, 0.7, was released back in November. Since then, PCI-SIG has remained at work collecting feedback from its members, and is gearing up to release another draft update next month. That draft will incorporate the all of the new protocol and electrical updates that have been approved for the spec since 0.7.

In a bit of a departure from the usual workflow for the group, however, this upcoming draft will be 0.71, meaning that PCIe 6.0 will be remaining at draft 0.7x status for a little while longer. The substance of this decision being that the group is essentially going to hold for another round of review and testing before finally clearing the spec to move on to the next major draft. Overall, the group’s rules call for a 30-day review period for the 0.71 draft, after which the group will be able to release the final draft 0.9 specification.

Ultimately, all of this is to say that PCIe 6.0 remains on track for its previously-scheduled 2021 release. After draft 0.9 lands, there will be a further two-month review for any final issues (primarily legal), and, assuming the standard clears that check, PCI-SIG will be able to issue the final, 1.0 version of the PCIe 6.0 specification.

In the interim, the 0.9 specification is likely to be the most interesting from a technical perspective. Once the updated electrical and protocol specs are approved, the group will be able to give some clearer guidance on the signal integrity requirements for PCIe 6.0. All told we’re not expecting much different from 5.0 (in other words, only a slot or two on most consumer motherboards), but as each successive generation ratchets up the signaling rate, the signal integrity requirements have tightened.

Overall, the unabashedly nerdy standards group is excited about the 6.0 standard, comparing it in significance to the big jump from PCIe 2.0 to PCIe 3.0. Besides proving that they’re once again able to double the bandwidth of the ubiquitous bus, it will mean that they’ve been able to keep to their goal of a three-year cadence. Meanwhile, as the PCIe 6.0 specification reaches completion, we should finally begin seeing the first PCIe 5.0 devices show up in the enterprise market.

Source: AnandTech – PCI Express 6.0 Status Update: Draft 0.71 Coming Soon, Final Release by End of Year

As part of their Scaling the Mobile Compute Ecosystem presentation, Qualcomm this morning is announcing a refreshed version of their Snapdragon 7c for laptops. Aptly named Snapdragon 7c Gen 2, the updated chip for entry-level Windows PCs and Chromebooks sports a slight clockspeed boost, bumping the frequency of the two Kryo 486 (Cortex-A76) cores up to 2.55GHz. Spec bumps aside, Qualcomm’s target market for the 7c family hasn’t changed, with the updated SoC designed to serve as an anchor for sub-$400 “always-on” devices.

Source: AnandTech – Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 7c Gen 2: Entry-Level PC and Chromebook Refresh

Alongside today’s Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 SoC announcement, Qualcomm is also unveiling a new Windows 10-focused development kit. Collaborating with Microsoft, the two companies have put together the Snapdragon Developer Kit for Windows 10, which true to its name, is designed to serve as a dev kit for application authors to more easily test Windows 10 on Arm programs. The pint-sized PC is expected to be available this summer.

Overall, while devices based on Qualcomm’s Windows-capable Snapdragon SoCs have been around for a couple of years now, neither Qualcomm nor Microsoft have put together an official development kit for the platform. And though the idea of a development kit is somewhat foreign in the PC landscape where there is no one PC platform (x86 or otherwise), Qualcomm’s Windows on Arm (WoA) efforts hail from the mobile world, where dev kits and reference devices are common. So in an effort to better meet the needs of WoA application developers, whom until now have been stuck doing testing on laptops and tablets like the Surface Pro X, Qualcomm and Microsoft are putting together a proper mini-PC for developer testing.

At this point, Qualcomm isn’t saying too much about the PC itself, in part to give Microsoft something to announce as part of their Build conference later this week. However, given the timing of the announcement – as well as Qualcomm’s own comments on ensuring the dev kit remains affordable – it wouldn’t be too surprising to see the kit based around the new Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 SoC. Though the slowest of Qualcomm’s offerings, the 7c Gen 2 is also the cheapest option, and more than sufficient for basic compatibility testing.

Meanwhile a side-shot of the PC at least gives us a basic idea of what to expect for I/O. The right side of the box ha a single USB port, along with a SD card slot and a third, unknown card slot (SIM?).

The Snapdragon Developer Kit will go on sale this summer, with Microsoft selling the dev kit directly through their online store.

Source: AnandTech – Qualcomm Shows Off Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows on Arm Development

Continuing their ongoing efforts to limit the Ethereum mining performance of their GeForce video cards – and thus make them less enticing for miners – NVIDIA today has announced that they are bringing their cryptocurrency hash limiter to additional GeForce cards. Already a fixture on the vanilla GeForce RTX 3060 since its launch, NVIDIA has begun incorporating their hash limiting technology and its associated security stack into newly manufacture red GeForce RTX 3080, 3070, and 3060 Ti cards. The new cards will appear on shelves later this month, and will carry the “LHR” branding to differentiate themselves from the first-generation, unthrottled cards.

Source: AnandTech – NVIDIA To Extend Ethereum Throttle to GeForce RTX 3080, 3070, & 3060 Ti “LHR” Cards