What is a USB type-c?

In the early hours of March 10 in Beijing, Apple unveiled a new MacBook at the Grass Art Center in San Francisco, which has left a deep impression on countless consumers. Once again, the ultimate Apple has a butcher knife on the various interfaces on the Macbook 12 and, in the case of cutting off all its original interfaces, introduces us to a new, lightweight USB interface like the Lightning interface: USB type-c.

So the question is, what's the USB type-c? Why does Apple choose USB instead of pushing years Thunderbolt,usb type-c is holy? Below the Pepsi net Small series for everybody detailed introduction under.

What is a USB type-c?

USB type-c abbreviation for USB-C, its birth is not long, as early as December 13, the USB 3.0 promotion team has released the next generation of USB TYPE-C connector rendering map, in August 2014 issued the USB 3.1 standard only just finalized. It is a specification of a new USB cable and connector that defines a whole new set of USB physical specifications including connectors, ports, containers, and cables.

USB type-c is a kind of and the iphone lightning interface as thin and compact new USB interface, can be expanded into power/USB transmission/VGA or HDMI three interface, through the adapter, but also compatible with USB3.0, USB2.0 and other previous generation interface.

The USB type-c has a new interface size and a slightly cool name, making it easy for the first-time consumer to think it's a brand new USB standard, but it's not actually. USB type-c is only part of the USB 3.1 standard, not a new standard. Also, it needs to be explained that, similar to the common USB 2.0, the USB 3.1 standard still has type-a (common in computer host) and Micro-b (common Yuan Cho Mobile) and other interfaces, Type-c is not the consumer to enjoy the USB 3.1 high-speed data transmission of the only choice.

Apple Mac 12 single Usb-c interface uncovered

Why does a USB organization need to introduce a new physical interface specification? As more and more new equipment for lightweight miniaturization of the pursuit of the traditional USB interface of the "large" size has been difficult to meet the equipment manufacturers and consumers demand. At the same time, the traditional USB interface needs to be repeatedly unplugged, looking for the "right" direction of the problem has been widely criticized by consumers, users desperately need a similar lighting interface as the reverse side can be inserted interface, especially in mobile phones and other need to frequently connect data lines of equipment, One to two times a day the experience of the wrong interface is never friendly.

Based on these problems, the USB standard makers introduced the TYPE-C physical interface specification and introduced several major features in the specification:

Fiber Thin

Unlike traditional type-a interfaces in life, the new Type-c interface is greatly thinner in size, only for 8.3*2.5mm, and more suitable for use in increasingly miniaturized computing devices.

No directionality

Similar to the Apple Lightning Interface, the Type-c interface has no directional requirements, that is, both positive and negative inserts can complete the pairing, which greatly improves the usability of the USB interface.

Thunderbolt interface

I'll talk about Apple's Thunderbolt interface later. Thunderbolt is a technology developed by Apple in deep collaboration with Intel Corporation, which incorporates traditional PCIe data transfer technology and DisplayPort display technology. The Thunderbolt interface was applied to the Macbook Pro notebook in 2011 by Apple.

Its main advantages are: Large bandwidth, fast transmission speed. After the transformation of the new version of the Thunderbolt 2 interface, can achieve two-way 20Gbps theoretical transmission speed, much higher than the 10Gbps theoretical transmission speed of USB 3.1.

Prior to the launch, Thunderbolt had been considered an interface specification that Apple and Intel valued and would vigorously promote. So why would Apple eventually choose to use a USB Type-3 in the new Macbook?

By comparing the information of the two interface specifications, we cautiously suspect that there are several possible reasons for this:

Interface size: Compared with the slim (2.5mm) of USB type-c, the Thunderbolt interface does not have any advantage in size.

Cost control: Under Intel's strong control, the price of Thunderbolt interface chip has been high for many years, which brings great pressure to the manufacturing cost and retail price of various related equipments, while the USB type-c chip is relatively inexpensive, which can greatly help Apple control the hardware cost.

Power supply Capacity: The Thunderbolt interface can only provide the maximum 10W power output, while the USB 3.1 Type-c interface can provide up to 100W of power output, that is, through the Typc-c interface without any adapter directly for another notebook computer or smartphone to charge.

Scalability: USB 3.1 has a wide range of expansion space, including the 4K image of the DisplayPort output can also be easily implemented via USB 3.1.

In fact, Apple is not the only device manufacturer to choose USB type-c, not even the first one. The Nokia N1 tablet, just released in China this January, also chose USB Type-c as its only data interface. We believe that, based on its superior data transmission performance, thin interface size and low price, coupled with star products such as Apple devices, USB type-c should be able to spread rapidly over the next few years and shine in the new mobile era.

The Chinese full name of the USB interface is a universal serial bus, a standard developed by a non-profit organization composed of 7 technology companies, including Microsoft, Intel and IBM in 1994. The original goal was to help external devices better connect to and exchange data with the computer. After more than 20 years of development, the USB standard has experienced from 1.x, 2.0, 3.0 to more than 3.1 versions of the development of data transmission rate has made considerable progress.

In addition to the type-c,usb of the eye, there are a lot of other types of connectors (including a number of connectors that are not certified by the USB organization but are standardized), and the image above shows the common 3 Class 6 interfaces: Standard interface, Mini interface and Micro interface.

usb1.0-3.1 Rate Comparison

TYPE-A: Standard Version USB interface

USB type-a is the most common type of USB interface in our daily life, in general, the end of type-a on the connecting line will be connected to the computer. But it has some notable problems: first of all, it has a certain directional requirements, the user must be in a specific direction to the connector (public port) into the interface (the mouth), but because the USB public port on both sides of the shape is very close, the insertion process often error; In addition, the size of the type-a is too large, The Type-a interface is almost impossible to pursue on a portable device. Because of this, the Micro type and Mini interface came into being and carried forward in the portable equipment.

Interestingly, the traditional model for USB cable work is that one endpoint is a type-a type (for connecting to a computer), and the other endpoint is a type-b type (for connecting devices); So in life it's very rare to see both ends of a type-a cable; USB Type-c is a way to be is applied to the interface type of the primary device (host) and from the device (device).

Micro-b: USB Standard for mobile devices

It is worth mentioning that most of the current Android phone using the Micro USB interface (ie, USB micro-b), this interface in 2007 by the Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and other companies, including the Open mobile Terminal platform organization launched and gradually spread, So far to be widely used in a variety of mobile portable devices.

Predictably, with the advent of USB type-c technology, the future of a variety of notebooks, tablets and even smartphones will begin to popularize the USB type-c interface.