What is USB?

Like any other Ports which are available with PC (Serial Port or Parallel Port) USB Port is also a means with the help of which you can connect any of the Peripheral devices with our computer. These Peripheral devices can be anything, be it an Output or Input deices like Keyboard, Mice, Joysticks, Printers, Digital Camera etc. USB stands for Universal Serial Port and as the name suggests USB Ports has been incorporated with many of the devices like you PC, Laptops, Mobile Phones, and Digital Camera etc.

Features of USB Port

1. Compared to alternative ports such as parallel or serial ports, USB is very user-friendly. Earlier using Serial or Printer Port by the users were never been hassle free since the introduction of USB Port.

2. With Plug and Play (PnP) feature consumers without a lot of technical or hardware knowledge were able to easily connect USB devices to their computer. User can even plug in and out any of the USB devices from the computer without turning them off.

3. USB drive can also be used at any platform be it Windows, Linux or Mac. It is easily configurable on any of the computers running with different OS. Only you have to look for is their Drivers for the Device installation. Most of these Drivers are actually included with the peripheral which you are connecting. Many of the drivers like Driver for your Keyboard or Mice comes incorporated with the OS which you are using.

4. Faster data rate can be possible with the use of USB port. Now one can expect the data transfer rate between the Computer and Peripheral which you are using can be up to 12Mbps or even more. Researches are on for increasing these transfer rates even more.

5. Large number of Peripherals up to 127 numbers of peripherals can be connected with the USB by using USB Hub. This is the major advantages since earlier PC’s without USB had only one or two Serial or Parallel port and if need arises to connect more than one serial or parallel port devices to the PC then one has to remove the other before using it. This problem is not with the USB; one can connect as many as 127 USB devices with the PC.

How USB Port Works?

Every System which uses USB Port has a USB controller with in themselves whose main work is to act as a medium between the two devices which are communicating on USB Port. This USB controller’s control the data transfer rate provides the unique address to several USB port and also determines the frame and the time allocated for communication if there are more than one USB devices connected to the System.

First of all when the system is working these USB Controller looks for the number of active devices connected to the USB Port and then assigns a unique Port Address to each one of them. Now having done this these USB controllers distributes the available bandwidth with them between the devices which are connected to the PC keeping 10% of the bandwidth with them reserved for some other work. Now each of the data going in out is broken into Frames which is of size 1,500 bytes and each frame has unique number which contains the information of the destination source to which it is sourced to. There are many of the devices which might be communicating at the same time, but all the data which arrives at the USB controller gets broken up into small chunks of frames with their unique Port Address and is transferred further.

Each transfer of these frames takes place for a fixed interval of time. This time allocation again has been carried by these USB controllers and it depends upon the devices that frequently transfer its data. For example a USB Webcam transfers data regularly as compared to a USB Keyboard. So frames originating from Webcam will be more frequent tan the frames of the Keyboard. And with the transfer of thee frames at regular intervals the communication between the USB devices takes place.

What is USB 2.0?

USB 2.0 is one of the standards of different USB devices available. These standards are mainly divided on the speed at which they work. The latest of the standards of USB is USB 2.0. It is an upgrade version of USB 1.1. USB 2.0 (High-speed USB) provides additional bandwidth for multimedia and storage applications and has a data transmission speed 40 times faster than USB 1.1. These USB 2.0 is upward as well as forward compatible means you can use any of the old standard USB devices with the new one and vice versa.