USB Hubs

Universal Serial Bus (USB) was designed to standardize the connections of devices to computers, both for communication and to supply power. It has become widely used in most devices and has largely replaced interfaces such as parallel and serial ports. 

USB hubs are devices that expand a single Universal Serial Bus (USB) port into multiple ports so that more devices can connect to a host system. Self-powered hubs use power from an external power supply and can provide full power to every port, whereas bus-powered hubs draw power from the host computer. Many devices require more power than bus-powered hubs can provide. USB hubs used for industrial applications generally have dual power inputs to power heavy-load applications and provide hi-speed USB 2.0 data rates up to 480 Mbps. It is also important that each port has electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection and can operate in wide temperature ranges.