Acer Laboratories (ALi) announced that it has started mass-producing its USB 2.0 IDE interface controller chips and shipments will begin in February. The controller chip has passed nearly 100 compatibility verification tests at the compliance workshop of the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF). To keep up with the development of PC peripherals, major chipset designers have all announced plans to incorporate the USB 2.0 interface into their new products, integrating it with IEEE 1394 or ATA-133 standards on the south bridge chip. Source: DigiTimes.Com