VIA Labs Demos World’s First 4-Port USB 3.0 Host Controller

With glamorous tablet PCs, netbooks and a well known and diverse range of embedded products, it's easy to forget that VIA is a chip company. Many of the chips they design provide great features ... but kind of mundane. A bit like bread in a diet ... a staple. USB chips are a bit like that. We all expect them on every motherboard and in every device. We kind of forget that someone develops them, manufactures them, and sells them. VIA do.

They've just announced the VIA Labs VL800 which is a 4 port USB 3.0 Host Controller. Apparently there are only 2 port controllers on the market so far, so this is good stuff! The four ports are all on the one chip.

"Not only will desktop PC systems featuring the new VL800 host controller be able to transfer huge amounts of data back and forth from several devices simultaneously, but with support for the USB Battery Charging Specification the PC’s USB ports can also be used to power and charge peripheral devices such as flash drives, hard drives, video cameras and mobile phones."

In Australia, at the moment Gigabyte are dominating the market with motherboards because they have USB 3.0 ports on them. Everyone wants USB 3.0 on their new systems and distis and SIs are dumping older stock that only has USB 2.0. After that, we'll start seeing a demand for more ports and the VL800 looks to be a great contender.