Intel's 50Gbps Light Peak Successor

Barence writes "Intel has unveiled yet another high-speed optical interface – before its long-awaited Light Peak connector has even reached the market. The Light Peak optical interconnect can transfer data at 10Gbps in both directions, and is touted as an all-in-one replacement for USB, DisplayPort, and HDMI. The new interface uses an indium phosphide hybrid laser inside the controller chip — a process that Intel calls silicon photonics — rather than using a separate optical module, as with Light Peak. And by encoding data at 12.5Gbits/sec across four laser beams of differing wavelengths, the connector yields a total bandwidth of 50Gbps, five times that offered by Light Peak. 'This is not a technology that's ten years away, but maybe three to five years,' Intel fellow Mario Paniccia announced. 'Light Peak, as we've stated, will launch next year.'" HotHardware quotes Intel in more detail on the difference between the two programs: "This research is separate from Intel's Light Peak technology... Light Peak is an effort to bring a multi-protocol 10Gbps optical connection to Intel client platforms for nearer-term applications. Silicon Photonics research aims to use silicon integration to bring dramatic cost reductions, reach tera-scale data rates, and bring optical communications to an even broader set of high-volume applications."

Comments

Re:Why optical?

[dbraden]

I also remember reading somewhere that it's easier to achieve high speed over a serial interface because once you start dealing with very high speeds the timing differences of when a signal arrives at the destination become a big factor.

In a super simple, flawed I'm sure, example, assume you have an 8-bit interface (and ignore other lines required). When you send a byte down the line, you have each bit traveling down it's own data line. When they reach the other end, you have to wait until you have all eight before you can reconstruct the original byte and hand it off.

To human perception, those 8 bits will arrive simultaneously, but in computer-time (bullet-time?) it can seem like ages waiting for all 8 slots to fill, and will probably become more and more out of sync as time goes by, forcing all 8 lanes to shutdown periodically (maybe one of the data lines has a kink, flaw, or is simply slightly longer than the others).

Right or wrong, that's my understanding of it ;)