The USB 3.0 specification is similar to USB 2.0 but with many improvements and an alternative implementation. Earlier USB concepts like endpoints and four transfer types (bulk, control, isochronous and interrupt) are preserved but the protocol and electrical interface are different. The specification defines a physically separate channel to carry USB 3.0 traffic. The changes in this specification make improvements in the following areas:

    Transfer speed – Added a new transfer type called Super Speed or SS – 5 Gbit/s (electrically it is more similar to PCIe Gen2 and SATA than USB 2.0)

Increased bandwidth – Instead of one-way communication, USB 3.0 uses two unidirectional data paths: one to receive data and the other to transmit

Power management – U0 through U3 link power management states are defined

    Improved bus utilization – a new feature is added (using packets NRDY and ERDY) to let a device asynchronously notify the host of its readiness (no need for polling)

    Support to rotating media – Bulk protocol is updated with a new feature called Stream Protocol that allows a large number of logical streams within an Endpoint

USB 3.0 has transmission speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s, which is 10 times as fast as USB 2.0 (480 Mbit/s) before taking into account that USB 3.0 is full duplex whereas USB 2.0 is half duplex, giving USB 3.0 the potential total bandwidth if utilized both ways to 20 times that of USB 2.0.

Architecture and features

    In USB 3.0, dual-bus architecture is used to allow both USB 2.0 (Full Speed, Low Speed, or High Speed) and USB 3.0 (Super Speed) operations to take place simultaneously, thus providing backward compatibility. Connections are such that they also permit forward compatibility, that is, running USB 3.0 devices on USB 2.0 ports. The structural topology is the same, consisting of a tiered star topology with a root hub at level 0 and hubs at lower levels to provide bus connectivity to devices.

Data transfer and synchronization

    The SuperSpeed transaction is initiated by the host making a request followed by a response from the device. The device either accepts the request or rejects it. If accepted then device sends data or accepts data from the host. If the endpoint is halted, the device shall respond with a STALL handshake. If there is lack of buffer space or data, it responds with a Not Ready (NRDY) signal to tell the host that it is not able to process the request. When the device is ready then, it will send an Endpoint Ready (ERDY) to the host which will then reschedule the transaction.

The use of unicasting and the limited multicasting of packets, combined with asynchronous notifications, enables links that are not actively passing packets to be put into reduced power states, allowing for better power management.

Data encoding

    The "SuperSpeed" bus provides for a transfer mode at a nominal rate of 5.0 Gbit/s, in addition to the three existing transfer modes. Accounting for encoding overhead, the raw data throughput is 4 Gbit/s, and the specification considers it reasonable to achieve 3.2 Gbit/s (0.4 GB/s or 400 MB/s) or more in practice.

    All data is sent as a stream of eight bits (one byte segments) which are scrambled and then converted into a 10-bit format. This helps to reduceelectromagnetic interference (EMI). The inverse process is carried out at the receiving end. Scrambling is       implemented using a free running linear feedback shift register (LFSR). The LFSR is reset whenever a COM symbol is sent or received.

    Unlike previous standards, the USB 3.0 standard does not directly specify a maximum cable length, requiring only that all cables meet an electrical specification: for copper cabling with AWG 26 wires the maximum practical length is 3 meters (9.8 ft)