Fresco Logic, American Megatrends to deliver industry’s first USB 3.0 xHCI 1.0 solution

IDF 2010, SAN FRANCISCO, USA: American Megatrends Inc. (AMI), a leader in BIOS and computing innovations, and Fresco Logic, a global fabless semiconductor company delivering innovative SuperSpeed USB connectivity solutions collaborate to deliver xHCI 1.0 solutions to a key customer.

This delivery establishes Fresco Logic and AMI as market leaders in USB3.0 host controller chip and in BIOS development, respectively.

The extensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) is the newest host controller standard that provides improvements in speed, power efficiency and virtualization over its predecessors.

The specification is developed and released by Intel to the industry with the goal of defining a USB host controller to replace UHCI/OHCI/EHCI. It supports all USB device speeds (USB 3.0 SuperSpeed, USB 2.0 Low-, Full-, and High-speed).

In May 2010, Intel released revision 1.0 of the xHCI specification. This is a key milestone in that, now, both major technical specifications relevant to USB 3.0 host controllers are mature and ready for mass-market deployment. xHCI 1.0 adds many features to increase performance, reduce processor load, support new usage models, and it is designed to seamlessly expand with future bandwidth and feature requirements.

Fresco Logic has been an active participant and one of the key contributors to the development and completion of the xHCI specification since 2008. Fresco Logic’s FL1000 Host controller chip has been in mass production in applications including laptops, motherboards, add-in cards, and ExpressCards.

Fresco Logic’s Patented GoXtream xHCI Accelerator Engine is the driving force behind all Fresco Logic host controllers. The GoXtream engine is capable of delivering unprecedented performance but is also optimized for low-power operation. All the while, minimizing total system cost and design cycle time for the end user.

With the support of xHCI Revision 1.0, Fresco Logic leads the industry to provide future-proof, compliant host controller silicon that OEMs/ODMs can benefit from.

Since its inception, AMI has been a consistent leader in the technology industry. AMI was the first BIOS vendor to support USB in the BIOS, first to create a GUI BIOS interface with mouse support, first to integrate diagnostics, and first to support ACPI with AMIBIOS.

Now, AMI extends its history of innovation and industry firsts by becoming the first vendor to develop and provide the xHCI 1.0 BIOS module to key customers in support of Fresco Logic’s newest host controller chip, the FL1009.

“xHCI Rev 1.0 will one day be the mainstream version of the USB 3.0 host controller specification and will be the version targeted by the major OS and chipset vendors. AMI is pleased to collaborate with Fresco Logic to satisfy our key customer requirement for xHCI 1.0 support,” said S. Shankar, president and CEO of American Megatrends.

“As a technology leader, AMI is aware of its responsibility to support new industry standards and has always been committed to being the first to deliver these in the form of high-quality solutions for our customers. Now that USB3.0 has become one of the key technologies for our customer’s products, AMI's support for xHCI 1.0 will give these customers peace of mind, knowing that the products they are delivering today will be viable as adoption of USB3.0 becomes further entrenched. Providing first access to key new technologies is one of the primary components for maintaining strong, long-term partnerships with our customers.”

“We view the release of the xHCI 1.0 standard as a powerful indicator that this technology is mature and ready for mass consumption,” said Jing-fan Zhang CEO of Fresco Logic. “We are very pleased to collaborate with AMI, a clear leader in the industry, to meet key customer requirements and be first to market with xHCI 1.0 compliant host controller solutions. Fresco Logic is committed to delivering the very best USB3.0 solutions and to lead the way in the industry’s rapid adoption of SuperSpeed-enabled products.”