USB

USB, short for Universal Serial Bus, is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and communications protocols used in a bus for connection, communication, and power supply between computers and electronic devices. It is currently developed by the USB Implementers Forum.

USB was designed to standardize the connection of computer peripherals (including keyboards, pointing devices, digital cameras, printers, portable media players, disk drives and network adapters) to personal computers, both to communicate and to supply electric power. It has become commonplace on other devices, such as smartphones, PDAs and video game consoles. USB has effectively replaced a variety of earlier interfaces, such as serial and parallel ports, as well as separate power chargers for portable devices.

Overview

In general, there are three basic kinds or sizes related to the USB connectors and types of established connection: the older "standard" size, in its USB 1.1, 2.0, and 3.0 variants (for example, on USB flash drives), the "mini" size (primarily for the B connector end, such as on many cameras), and the "micro" size, in its USB 1.1, 2.0, and 3.0 variants (for example, on most modern mobile phones).

USB 3.0

USB 3.0 (renamed to USB 3.1 Gen 1 in 2015) is the third major version of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard for interfacing computers and electronic devices. Among other improvements, USB 3.0 adds the new transfer mode SuperSpeed (SS) that can transfer data at up to 5 Gbit/s (625 MB/s), which is about ten times faster than the USB 2.0 standard. USB 3.0 connectors are usually distinguished from their USB 2.0 counterparts by blue color-coding of the receptacles and plugs, and the initials SS.

A successor standard, USB 3.1 (renamed to USB 3.1 Gen 2 in 2015), was released in July 2013 with the new transfer mode SuperSpeed+ that can transfer data at up to 10 Gbit/s (1.25 GB/s, twice the rate of USB 3.0), bringing its theoretical maximum speed on par with the first version of the Thunderbolt interface.

Overview

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:

USB-6008

The National Instruments USB-6008 is a low-cost, multifunction data acquisition device (DAQ). It has 8 analog inputs, 2 analog outputs, and 12 digital input/outputs. The digital channels are divided into two ports. When one or more channels on each port is set to either input or output, the port is locked into that particular mode.

The USB-6008 uses the NI-DAQmx driver software and is compatible with LabVIEW, Measurement Studio for Visual Studio, .NET, LabWindows/CVI, and MATLAB (version R2006a and newer).

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