Talk with Ajay Bhatt, USB Co-creator

Talk with Ajay Bhatt, USB Co-creator

Samir Makwana, Jan 24, 2010 0152 hrs IST

Light Peak is the vision, when materializes it will simplify connections

Most common connector port in a computer that even average Joe knows about is the USB Universal Serial Bus. If you have watched the Intel Star ad on TV, you'll realize whom we're going to talk about. Ajay Bhatt, Intel Fellow and chief client platform architect for Intel Architecture group, Intel was the guest lecturer at the PC Saxena Lecture Theatre, IIT-Bombay, Mumbai. Bhatt is is the co-inventor of USB. His lecture was literally flooded with students and Bhatt immediately conducted another session after the first one. Take a look at Ajay Bhatt's Intel Star Ad.

Bhatt spoke about the evolution of mobile computing, power requirements and changes in users need for mobile computing. Furthermore, he talked about future Augmented Reality technology for the mobile platform that included application of Mobile Augmented Reality. The concept of Augmented Reality itself is in its infancy stage but several technological giants have already started researching on Augmented Reality for Mobile phones. Next he talked about Mixed and Augmented Reality along with its future application.

Bhatt believes that a holistic approach for better power management is necessary for all mobile platforms for consumers are looking forward for longer battery life offering devices. Bhatt also talked a bit about Cloud Computing and gave the recent incident of cloud data outage on T-Mobile Sidekick phones.

When Bhatt worked on the serial bus, it was criticized as dumbest idea which would never work. But here we're with USB which is most widely used port on computers as well as mobile devices. You shouldn't be surprised to know that it was multimedia usage like music and video playback that inspired Bhatt to go ahead and co-create USB.

Here's the snippet of a quick talk with Ajay Bhatt:

Why call it Universal Serial Bus? Why not something like Global Serial Bus?

Ajay Bhatt: You can blame it on me for not being creative enough. Initially we thought about calling it Serial Bus. But then we thought that this has slightly universal appeal. So let's call it Universal Serial Bus. For the sake of simplicity, we decided to do a simple protocol and all the scheduling complexities are built in the computer such that the device is kept as simple as possible.

Back in 1990, when we couldn't afford expensive hardware, I made that executive decision to keep it simple. We just created it for performance, power and efficiency.

TT: USB 3.0 has just arrived. Do you think Intel s Light Peak Technology has the potential to make the best of USB 3.0?

AB: Oh yes! Absolutely. The beauty of light peak is that it can support any protocol.

TT: It s said that USB 3.0 and other connecting ports will be eradicated when Light Peak arrives.

AB: That's the vision. When it (light peak) materializes, it will really simplify connections. Won t it be nice to have a plug that acts simple just like power supply of your laptop. Plug it in 110V it works, plug it in 240V it works. USB 3.0 has been around for a while and it will be around for a while. It's not either or, it's about the evolution of technology to solve the problem.

Back in November we reported about Intel s decision to stall USB 3.0 implementation till 2011 which as per Nvidia's confirmation. Bhatt clarified that Intel has product cycles and we are trying to align the processor, chipset and everything else. So the product (USB 3.0) will be introduced along with the future launch.

TT: What do you think is the basic problem for the existence of mini-USB as well as micro-USB and there s no one universal USB standard for mobile devices Mobile phones, PDAs, Portable Music Players?

AB: Different applications demand different form factors. A side is the standard thing and from the beginning we said the B-side is function/device specific. So from very beginning we said that the computer side would be standard and the B-side would be device dependant. It's just to meet market needs. If you've a very slim phone or portable device and mini-USB port didn't work then you go for micro-USB.

TT: You witnessed the death of Accelerated Graphics Port. Do you think it would've survived?

AB: AGP couldn't have survived anymore. As you moved faster and faster (in terms of core frequency), the set up in the whole-time environment became stringent and became cost prohibitive. In my Labs, we tried it out and I was convinced that extending it one more time was lot more expensive then gutting through the things and going ahead with PCI Express that's what we ended up doing. In early 2000 I said that once we start with PCI-Express, we scale it for 10 years. Now we re approaching that point where we're able to scale up to 10 years.

TT: We've been hearing about the wireless charging which you also talked about. What do you think is the challenge out there?

The challenge is efficiency, regulatory standards and energy, size of transmitter, cost of transmitter, cost of receiver and so on.

TT: Even Wireless Bluetooth charging is being researched since a while.

Challenges are the ability issues, regulatory issues, cost issues and so on. Then you've to significantly improve the experience over wire (wired connection). By going wired I can provide 110watts to something, but by going wireless I can provide only 10V. That's not a good replacement for the current technology.

What really inspiring for all of us is Bhatt s advice Never take no for an answer. Be persistent. If you've a vision, stick to it.

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Talk with Ajay Bhatt, USB Co-creator

Light Peak is the vision, when materializes it will simplify connections

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