An In Depth Look at Intel's Thunderbolt Technology (Comment Thread)

[SKYMTL]

After nearly two years of teasing us with tantalizing bit of information, Intel has finally launched their Light Peak technology which is now called Thunderbolt. In this article, we will go through the story behind this promising new I/O standard and discuss the possibilities it brings to the table for a storage hungry market....

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[_dangtx_]

nice, although lets see some real worlde tests :)

[SKYMTL]

Considering there aren't any devices available yet...that could be an issue. ;)

[Desiato]

It's interesting to me that many features of Thunderbolt are already present in Displayport 1.2 announced last year:

- USB support
- Ethernet Support
- Audio channel
- 21.6Gbps total bandwidth

Add the PCIE protocol and we have Thunderbolt(?) I wonder if this was the original plan or a fallback because the optical technology wasn't going to be viable in the near future?

[_dangtx_]

oops. but didnt the new macs have it? or rather,yeah,what to test it with :p

[SKYMTL]

Originally Posted by Desiato

It's interesting to me that many features of Thunderbolt are already present in Displayport 1.2 announced last year:

- USB support
- Ethernet Support
- Audio channel
- 21.6Gbps total bandwidth

Add the PCIE protocol and we have Thunderbolt(?) I wonder if this was the original plan or a fallback because the optical technology wasn't going to be viable in the near future?

Optical is being implemented later this year.

[Desiato]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Optical is being implemented later this year.

I believe it's possible it will be prohibitively expensive - but no one knows for sure, of course.

[SKYMTL]

At this point there is no reason to add full optical to Thunderbolt since it will mean eliminating bus-powered devices. Copper allows for speeds above anything current consumer-based devices can achieve so while speeds above 10 Gbps may look good on paper, there is just no reason for them.

From my understanding from conversations with Intel, they are going to be implementing optical interfaces on certain enterprise-class systems in order to boost the transmission distance past the 3 meters copper currently provides.

[MrDiaz]

Maybe if Apple didn't include Light Peak into their MacBook Pro line they would've been cheaper :/

[JefeMixtli]

I'm confused about the issue of licensing with t-bird (imho. much easier to pronounce). I wonder if you someone could clear this up:

From HC:

We should also mention that while USB is an open format, Thunderbolt isn’t. This means companies who wish to implement Intel’s new technology will incur the cost of a controller chip and any potential royalties associated with it.

From AnandTech:

Apple learned its lesson after FireWire licensing slowed adoption - the Thunderbolt port and controller specification are entirely Intel’s. Similarly, there’s no per-port licensing fee or royalty for peripheral manufacturers to use the port or the Thunderbolt controller.