The USB Promoter Group has released the final USB4 2.0 specifications and the logos that will represent it. The main innovation is, as expected, an increase in data transfer performance up to 80 Gbpsbandwidth that Intel is working on for Thunderbolt 5.

The new standard will be backward compatible with the original version of USB4 and also with the previous ones, USB 3.2, USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt 3. Due to licensing issues, USB4 2.0 will not be compatible with Thunderbolt 4 initially.

Another of its great advantages is that can be used with the same power cables, although other new specific ones will also be introduced to the market. In this way, using PAM3 signal encoding, 80Gbps connections will be possible via newly defined 80Gbps active USB-C cables or existing 40Gbps passive cables.

Specifications have been updated to support USB Type-C (the standard’s most modern connector) and USB Power Delivery (USB PD), a fast charging protocol that allows USB-C cables and connectors to be used to charge devices with up to 100 watts of power.

Updating the architecture also makes it possible upgrade older versions such as USB 3.2 which now exceeds 20 Gbps. In addition, they will take better advantage of the increase in available bandwidth and better integrate with internal PCIe Gen 4 interfaces, as well as the latest version of DisplayPort 2.1, which was introduced this week.

New logos for USB4 2.0

Since the name USB4 2.0 can be confused with USB 2.0, which is 20 years old and reaches a maximum of 480 Mbps, the organization responsible for the standard has published a series of logos that all products certified to this standard must bear. A new standard for connecting peripheral ports will be introduced in 2023.