USB Driver Architecture

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The USB driver architecture consists of a host computer, a physical bus, and one or more USB devices. The host computer contains two layers: an upper software layer, which includes USB device drivers, and a host controller hardware layer, also known as an adapter layer. The main responsibility of the host computer is to control data transfers to and from USB devices. USB devices are peripherals that use the USB electrical and data format specifications to communicate with the host computer. The physical bus is the set of USB cables that links the controller with the peripherals.

The following list shows the layers of the USB driver architecture:

  • Host computer
  • Upper software layer with USB device drivers
  • Host controller layer or adapter layer
  • Physical bus
  • USB device

See Also

USB Topology | USB Transfer Types | USB Host Controller | USB Devices | USB System Software

 Last updated on Tuesday, May 18, 2004

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