Intel ’s Thunderbolt high - speed interconnect engineering , which shuffles datum between PCs and devices like displays and external storage , could be eld aside from getting visual engineering , an Intel executive said this week .
Thunderbolt , originallyintroduced in February on Apple ’s MacBook Pros , was pitched as being optical technology but presently uses atomic number 29 wires . Fiber optics are expensive to follow through , and copper wires are working much advantageously than expected , say Dadi Perlmutter , executive vice president and general director of the Intel Architecture Group , in an interview at the Intel Developer Forum being hold in San Francisco .
Thunderbolt , originally known as Light Peak , was announced in 2009 and was design to use fiber optics to transmit data among systems and gadget . However Intel and Apple released Thunderbolt base on copper , with data transfer pace between host devices and international devices of up to 10Gbps ( Gb per second ) . The trend of using copper wires could go forward , and it could be many old age before character optics are used in Thunderbolt .
Thunderbolt cables, such as this one from Apple, use copper, not fiber optics.
“ It ’s go to be way out , ” Perlmutter said . “ At the end of the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. it ’s all about how much speed people need versus how much they would be willing to pay . ”
The cost of implementing fibre optics is importantly high than bull , and copper can transmit data at adequate pep pill at this level , Perlmutter say . There is still more way for data transfers to jump on copper .
“ fuzz will keep to improve , which materialize . There have been many technologies that had been predicted dead 20 years ago that are still making beneficial advance . We ’ll see , ” Perlmutter said .
Fiber optic supply faster data transfers over longer distances liken to atomic number 29 , Intel official have said . Intel researchers are also rise technology base on silicon photonics that will be able to move datum up to five faster than current Thunderbolt implementations .
thunderclap cables , such as this one from Apple , use Cu , not fiber optics .
Thunderbolt was ab initio licensed exclusively to Apple , but Intel at IDF say thatAcer and Asuswould bring the interconnect to Windows microcomputer next year . The technology will be used in ultrabooks , which Intel is promoting as a new class of thin - and - light PCs with tablet - like feature . At IDF , a Windows PC with Thunderbolt connected to a solid - state parkway was shown channelise four uncompressed videos at 700 megabytes per secondly .
Thunderbolt is viewed as an alternative to USB 3.0 , which can transfer data at 5Gbps . However , Intel take a firm stand that the interconnects are complementary , and the microchip maker will integrate Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 bread and butter in chipsets for the upcoming Ivy Bridge processors , which will reach laptops and desktops too soon next year .
Only a few Thunderbolt peripheral are available today because of the exclusivity of the technology to Apple . But with Acer and Asus adopt Thunderbolt for microcomputer , a great number of peripheral makers could dramatize the interconnect . Thunderbolt presently supports the PCI Express and DisplayPort protocols , which helps reduce the act of connectors needed to attach peripheral to calculator .
