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Capitalism: Funny story related to USB, AMD and ASMedia
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Main reason why AMD turned to ASMedia had been to integrate USB 3.1 Gen2 support into all of their chipsets.

    And indeed, in spec sheets you see it in A320, B350, X370, B450 and X470.

    But, in reality in 95-99% of all cases you won't find them used on motherboards.

    Instead motherboards makers opt out for additional controllers from... ASMedia - 1142, 1143, 2142 and 3142.

    And even more fun fact - two of them are significantly worse than build in controller, and two others are slightly worse and also take two PCI-E lines that could be used for other things.

    Implementation using build in controller need recklockers made by... ASMedia and incidentally they had been pricey and in very short supply constantly.

    So, Asmedia implemented special scheme making each and every board around $3-7 more expensive and lacking some other feature due to this and also due to less space on board.

    This is how capitalism works. Induce billions in damages to make your own little income stream.

  • 1 Reply sorted by
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    So, small clarification and addition

    For classic PCH chipset placement on big ATX and mATX boards if you use build into chipset USB 3.1 Gen 2 controller you actually need re-timers (re-clockers) as at the back panel signal quality is already not top notch

    image

    By idea such chips must be much cheaper and simpler to use compared to full USB 3.1 gen 2 controller, but it seems like due to PCB routing issues and ASMedia pricing it is not the case for most boards. And this makes impact on already very limited PCIe lines. In AMD case it seems like most companies try to use SATA express PCIe lines somehow (as publically they never mentioned as being able to be used for such).

    image

    http://www.ti.com/lit/wp/slyy121/slyy121.pdf

    sa6775.jpg
    800 x 323 - 55K
    sa6946.jpg
    800 x 403 - 80K
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