Benson Leung

Last updated
Benson Leung
OccupationEngineer
Employer Google
Known forUSB-C cable testing

Benson Leung is an engineer known for reviewing USB-C cables for safety and specification compliance. His reviews have cast light on the proliferation of cheap, non-compliant cables.

Contents

Biography

Leung is a senior software engineer at Google working on the ChromeOS kernel. [1] He is an upstream Linux kernel maintainer for Chrome hardware. [2]

USB cable reviews

In 2016, Leung's laptop, a Chromebook Pixel, was rendered unbootable after plugging in a non-compliant but commercially available USB-C cable. Leung determined the cause to be a miswiring in the cable. [3] Since then, Leung has reviewed USB-C cables on Amazon under the name "LaughingMan", to test for specification compliance and weed out unsafe cables. His tests have identified numerous problematic cables. Some cheap cables identified lack pull-up resistors mandated by the USB specification, potentially causing devices to draw high levels of current, causing irreversible damage to the machines they are plugged into. [4] Leung found problematic cables can break the USB port they are plugged into, or even risk causing an electrical fire. [5] Following Leung's work, some vendors fixed their designs, [1] while Amazon banned the sale of non-compliant USB-C cables altogether. [6] Supplementing his online reviews, Leung has published instructions to help end-users test their cables. [7]

Leung is regarded as an expert on USB-C implementation. [8]

Related Research Articles

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Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad variety of USB hardware exists, including 14 different connector types, of which USB-C is the most recent and the only one not currently deprecated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Extension cord</span>

An extension cord (US), power extender, drop cord, or extension lead (UK) is a length of flexible electrical power cable (flex) with a plug on one end and one or more sockets on the other end. The term usually refers to mains extensions but is also used to refer to extensions for other types of cabling. If the plug and power outlet are of different types, the term "adapter cord" may be used. Most extension cords range from around two to thirty feet in length although they are made up to 300 feet in length.

Direct Cable Connection (DCC) is a feature of Microsoft Windows that allows a computer to transfer and share files with another computer, via a connection using either the serial port, parallel port or the infrared port of each computer. It is well-suited for computers that do not have an ethernet adapter installed, although DCC in Windows XP can be configured to use one if available.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">USB hub</span>

A USB hub is a device that expands a single Universal Serial Bus (USB) port into several so that there are more ports available to connect devices to a host system, similar to a power strip. All devices connected through a USB hub share the bandwidth available to that hub.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ACPI</span> Computer firmware interface standard

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an open standard that operating systems can use to discover and configure computer hardware components, to perform power management, auto configuration, and status monitoring. First released in December 1996, ACPI aims to replace Advanced Power Management (APM), the MultiProcessor Specification, and the Plug and Play BIOS (PnP) Specification. ACPI brings power management under the control of the operating system, as opposed to the previous BIOS-centric system that relied on platform-specific firmware to determine power management and configuration policies. The specification is central to the Operating System-directed configuration and Power Management (OSPM) system. ACPI defines hardware abstraction interfaces between the device's firmware, the computer hardware components, and the operating systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">USB 3.0</span> Third major version of the Universal Serial Bus standard

USB 3.0, released in November 2008, is the third major version of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard for interfacing computers and electronic devices. Among other improvements, USB 3.0 adds the new transfer rate referred to as SuperSpeed USB (SS) that can transfer data at up to 5 Gbit/s, which is about 10 times faster than Hi-Speed. It is recommended that manufacturers distinguish USB 3.0 connectors from their USB 2.0 counterparts by using blue color for the Standard-A receptacles and plugs, and by the initials SS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DisplayLink</span> American semiconductor and software technology company

DisplayLink is a semiconductor and software technology company. They develop the DisplayLink USB graphics technology, which is designed to connect computers and displays using USB, Ethernet, and WiFi. It also allows multiple displays to be connected to a single computer. DisplayLink's primary customers are notebook OEMs LCD monitor manufacturers and PC accessory vendors supporting the Microsoft Windows, macOS, Android, ChromeOS and Linux operating systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ChromeOS</span> Linux-based operating system developed by Google

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stick PC</span>

A stick PC or PC on a stick is a single-board computer in a small elongated casing resembling a stick, that can usually be plugged directly into an HDMI video port. A stick PC is a device which has independent CPUs or processing chips and which does not rely on another computer. It should not be confused with passive storage devices such as thumb drives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chromebook Pixel</span> 2013 Google laptop

The Chromebook Pixel is a 2013 laptop at the high end of Google's Chromebook family of machines, which all come preinstalled with ChromeOS operating system. The Chromebook Pixel is part of the Google Pixel series of consumer electronics. An updated model was released in 2015. Chromebook Pixel stopped receiving software and security updates in August 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">USB-C</span> 24-pin USB connector system

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pixelbook</span> Laptop developed by Google

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USB3 Vision is an interface standard introduced in 2013 for industrial cameras. It describes a specification on top of the USB standard, with a particular focus on supporting high-performance cameras based on USB 3.0. It is recognized as one of the fastest growing machine vision camera standards. As of October 2019, version 1.1 is the latest version of the standard.

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USB4 is a specification by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), which was released in version 1.0 on 29 August 2019. The USB4 protocol is based on the Thunderbolt 3 protocol; the Thunderbolt 3 specification was donated to the USB-IF by Intel Corp. The USB4 architecture can share a single high-speed link with multiple end-device types dynamically, best serving each transfer by data type and application.

References

  1. 1 2 Raphael, JR. "How I Use Android: Google engineer and USB-C crusader Benson Leung". Computerworld. No. 2015. IDG Communications. Retrieved 3 July 2021.
  2. "Linux kernel Maintainers file". git.kernel.org. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  3. Hollister, Sean (28 Feb 2016). "Should you fear your USB cable?". CNET. Red Ventures. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  4. Thomson, Iain (3 Feb 2016). "'Dodgy Type-C USB cable fried my laptop!'". The Register. Retrieved 3 July 2021.
  5. Gibbs, Samuel (15 Feb 2016). "Apple to replace faulty MacBook USB-C charging cables". The Guardian. Guardian News & Media Limited. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  6. Gibbs, Samuel (30 Mar 2016). "Amazon clamps down on dangerous, laptop-destroying USB-C cables". The Guardian. Guardian News & Media Limited. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  7. Lawler, R (4 Nov 2015). "Google engineer takes on subpar USB Type-C cables". Engadget. Verizon Media Inc. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  8. Amadeo, Ron (9 Jul 2019). "Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4". Arstechnica. Condé Nast. Retrieved 3 July 2021.