USB Drivers

Article
06/30/2006

The universal serial bus (USB) is an external bus architecture for connecting a USB-compatible peripheral device; such as a mouse, keyboard, or printer; to a host computer. USB is a communication protocol that supports serial data transfers between a host computer and a USB-compatible peripheral device.

The following table shows the capabilities of USB.

Capability	Description
Single, well-defined, standard connector type for all USB peripheral devices.	Simplifies the design of USB devices and your task of determining which plugs correspond to which ports on the host computer.
Combined mouse, modem, keyboard, and printer port.	Reduces hardware complexity.
Hot plugging.	Can safely connect or disconnect USB devices while the host computer is turned on. Other generic peripheral connection standards, such as the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), require that the host computer be turned off when a user adds or removes peripherals.
Plug and Play.	When a user plugs in a USB device, the host computer identifies the device and configures it by loading the appropriate driver.
Flexibility in how devices are powered.	USB devices can draw power directly from the USB cable. Bus-powered devices, supply their own power from batteries or from a wall outlet. Self-powered devices use a combination of power from batteries or from a wall outlet.
High-speed 12-megabits-per-second (Mbps) mode and a low-speed 1.5-Mbps mode.	Supports a variety of peripherals.
Guaranteed bandwidth.	For devices that cannot tolerate transmission that comes in bursts, such as streaming audio and video devices.
Multiple peripherals can communicate simultaneously with the host computer.	End-user convenience.

For more information about USB, see the USB Implementers Forum Web site or the Universal Serial Bus Specification, Revision 1.1.

USB Drivers

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Additional resources