Commenting on the USB 3.1 business, president of Taiwan-based connector chip design house ASMedia Chewei Lin pointed out that although Intel has delayed the launch of its next-generation processor platform to the third quarter, he expects USB 3.1's penetration to gradually increase with the next-generation platform's availability.

Since Intel's chipsets are not planned to support USB 3.1 natively until the end of 2016, ASMedia is fully prepared for the upcoming USB 3.1 business opportunities, Lin said.

ASMedia's USB 3.1 Gen2 10G host chip ASM1142 is already certified by USB-IF and is backward compatible with the previous-generation USB standards. The chip is also supported by Windows 10's USB 3.1 drivers.

To pass USB-IF's certification, ASMedia cooperated with the USB association to develop programs for the certification and increased its development projects with equipment makers as well as provided support and information to its industry partners in order to accelerate the USB 3.1 industry's development.

Lin said that the new platform's delay had some impact on related chip players, but since the launch is estimated to be in the third quarter, he expects the company's USB 3.1-related business to grow as originally anticipated.

Even if Intel decides to integrate USB 3.1 technology into its new chipsets, demand for third-party USB 3.1 chips will continue to exist and should not become a major issue for peripheral vendors thanks to their flexibility in product development.

However, entering the USB 3.1 generation, Lin expects the number of overall chip suppliers to be much fewer than that of the USB 3.0 generation because Intel's integration of USB 3.0 technology into its chipsets caused many suppliers to suddenly lose a major source income; therefore, some chip designers are likely to license their USB 3.1 IP to outside makers instead of manufacturing the chip themselves.

As for ASMedia, thanks to its strong R&D ability and its position in the market as well as support from parent company Asustek Computer, the company is planning to push USB 3.1 chips aggressively and it is also one of the two players that are able to supply USB 3.1 host chips. The other player is Intel.

In addition to USB 3.1 chips, ASMedia also has controller chip products for traditional hard disk drives as well as PCIE to SATA controller chips for routers.

Because of the delay of the Intel platform and weakening demand for PCs, ASMedia expects its revenues in the second quarter to decline sequentially.