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Intel Adopts USB-C Connector For 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3, Supports USB 3.1, DP 1.2
MojoKid writes: The high speed Thunderbolt interface standard, which is used for everything from hyper-fast external storage solutions to external graphics cards, has been slow to take off. You can blame the high-priced Thunderbolt peripherals and the uber-expensive cables (at least when compared to your garden-variety USB cables). For most people, USB 3.0 is "good enough" and making a huge investment into the Thunderbolt ecosystem has been reserved for those in the professional video editing arena. However, Intel is looking to change all of that with Thunderbolt 3. Thunderbolt 3 once again doubles the maximum bandwidth, this time jumping from 20Gbps to a whopping 40Gbps. While that is impressive in its own right, the truly big news is that Thunderbolt 3 is moving away from the Mini DisplayPort connector and is instead adopting the USB-C connector. As a result Thunderbolt will also support USB 3.1 (which is currently spec'd at 10Gbps) and can optionally provide up to 100W of power (in compliance with the USB Power Delivery spec) to charge devices via USB-C (like the recently introduced 12-inch Apple MacBook).
We've finally done it. One connector for charge, data and display.
Intel's hardware developers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
The USB type C standard has a whole lot of extra pins that can be repurposed for all sorts of things. It's extensibility built right in to the spec.
There's already examples of displayport and HDMI. Thunderbolt as well? That's just plain smart.
Did Intel co-invent USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt?
Just like USB or Ethernet, a new revision needs 10x the speed to be worthwhile.
These interfaces live or die by the quality of chipset support. Implemented properly (and given freedom to standardize for industry support) this can become a must-have port along the lines of serial, parallel, and yes the original USB. If the chipset interface isn't robust or has native security problems then it will become the next firewire: There by force and overshadowed by alternatives.
What I hope Intel does is create a high-quality set of specs and hand it to IEEE in the form of a high-quality Request for Comments.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
As a result Thunderbolt will also support USB 3.1 (which is currently spec'd at 10Gbps) and can optionally provide up to 100W of power (in compliance with the USB Power Delivery spec) to charge devices via USB-C (like the recently introduced 12-inch Apple MacBook).
I read 100W an I felt the hair singe off my legs.
I think the key word is "optionally". I doubt very many laptops will be able supply that much power for charging.
Finally. Someone as Intel figured that pushing both types of connector that they invented is not such a smart thing.
One port to rule them all. One place to find them
One cable to bring them in and in Thunderbolt bind them
Now let those who bought those $50 Thunderbolt cable cry about bloody murder.
Where is my Thunderbolt high speed LAN network connection? 10G Ethernet is prohibitively expensive, this has 40GB built in. Why can't I use 10G or so of that to network?!
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
...by the also-announced plans for wireless charging and docking. (okay sorta)
It'll be a while before the wireless docking and charging can replace wired connections, BUT, I think it's soon enough that this situation may somewhat resemble the slow uptake of Blu-Ray over DVD due to streaming becoming feasible.
Coopting an existing port makes things worse, because now in addition to knowing what ports a device has, you have to know what protocols it supports over those ports. I dread having to constantly explain to non computer savvy people that, yes that connector is a USB connector and your computer has USB ports, but that is a thunderbolt device and your computer doesn't support thunderbolt. It is enough to make he wish that thunderbolt remains a niche technology that doesn't gain mainstream use.
PCI-E X4 3.0 is still Limited for video cards and you still Chipset / cpu pci-e lanes to feed it.
The mac pro may have to cut the video cards to X8 X8 to have 3 full TB3 buses or move to a CPU with PCI-E 4.0 and add a lot pci-e switches.
2013 one
http://i.imgur.com/ItIqxDY.png
Right now they have 1 pci-e 3.0 X8 link driving the 3 TB buses + USB 3.0 controller
Say the CPU replaces the 3.0 links with 4.0 ones maybe they can fit things in with little to no change to add a 2th storage port they need to cut video cards to being feed from 1 X16 4.0 link switched to 2 X16 links freeing X16 switch out to say X4 3.0 storage two X4 3.0 storage one X4
With DMI X4 3.0 (likely used for on board stuff + network + wifi + sound + on chipset sata) you have X8 4.0 free and X8 3.0 free (switched)
You can take the X8 4.0 switch it out to X4 X4 X4 all TB 3 at pci-e 3 with (4 left over) maybe put 2 usb 3.1 buses on it at X2 each. and put say dual 10GB E-net on the other free X8 3.0. Maybe even have 4-6 TB 3.0 buses.
When will I be able to get a USB-C power slot for my laptop?
Will we now see USB-C outlets integrated into wall plates sold at big box hardware stores?
And will this new hybrid be vulnerable to the thunderbolt DMA attack? So now to get a secure system I would have to do without any USB-C connectors at all.
"The high speed Thunderbolt interface standard, which is used for everything " Seriously ? Is it indeed used for everything ? By all 12 worldwide users of thunderbolt?
"this time jumping from 20Gbps to a whopping 40Gbps. While that is impressive in its own right" - this one sounds like it was worded by a poorly paid marketeer.
"the truly big news is that Thunderbolt 3 is moving away from the Mini DisplayPort" - see above
There is nothing stopping you from plugging in an external display to any Apple laptop, past or present. The 13" MacBook that you appear to be alluding to supports 4K external monitors.
Most GPUs are not currently able to fully utilize 8x PCI-E 2.0, so this is fine for current gen cards with last years OS. DX12 and Vulkan may change things a bit, however.
NDxTreme Content on the Edge.
I still don't understand the thinking in the Apple exclusivity for Thunderbolt. Apple moves some computers, but not nearly the amount that it would take to get the kind of support that this technology really needed to do well. Yeah, it's no longer an exclusive now, but I thought the two year term was simply unrealistic. It seems to me that Intel wanted Thunderbolt to fail. If I were building a computer today (and I do build computers, I built what I'm typing on right now), Thunderbolt wouldn't even be a consideration as a need down the line. I don't see the need for it. Not for what I use my computer for. Not for most people, actually.
Bryan
Apple DOES NOT have an exclusive on thunderbolt.... It is more expensive to implement than USB and users have not been clamoring for it because USB tends to be "good enough" for most users. You can get thunderbolt in motherboards -- but they tend to be top of the line motherboards and not all of them.
Previous speed bumps in Ethernet always had a price premium, but it didn't last that long and the high speed quickly became bog standard on anything. Sure, there was/is still a quality factor involved (gak, RealTek) but for the most part everything worked pretty well and was at least faster than the previous speed even if limitations kept it from being capable of sustained wire speed.
10G Ethernet has been commercially available now for what seems like a long time, yet pretty much anything that can do it STILL costs a fortune. Why?
Vendor conspiracy? Vendors knowing that 1 GB works "real good" for pretty much every application you can throw at it, the silicon designs are long paid for and cash cows, lack of consumer/prosumer/endpoint adoption means there's no incentive to mass produce chipsets that might take precious 0.001% off already non-viable PC margins, "enterprise" consumers are willing to pay huge premiums for anything 10G capable (or trying to keep milking 8G FC)?
Is it the technology? There's some gotchas with 10G over copper relative to cable quality, etc, but is the silicon that much more expensive/complex that the usual mass production economies of scale doesn't basically fix?
Any bus - whether it be USB, a PCIe card or thunderbolt will have security issues. Since thunderbolt tends to be used in higher priced devices -- it is not going to be very attractive generally to manufacture the malware infected hardware devices to connect to it.
:o
Of course if we stopped allowing high speed / low latency devices to connect.... then more security could be added
Thunderbolt can be used to mount external desktop video cards. Back in the day some people managed to run an 8800 with two PCMCIA adapters at what I remember to be about 15% performance loss. There is also currently an adapter that uses internal x16 slot although it is hard to reach and may require removing internal components. Thunderbolt is 4xPCIe, which is enough for good performance. Unfortunately I can already see everything associated with Thunderbolt to be overpriced while x16 adapter can be bought for about $50.
As in the title, Apple had the exclusive for the first year. They squandered it, as they did not foster development of a healthy Thunderbolt ecosystem, and now Thunderbolt is essentially dead. Its only good use, aside form specialized video editing, is as a dock connection for laptops.
Seriously, what use is having UBS-C connectors work, but normal USB-C cables not, or at least they only deliver 20Gbps (the article is not clear on that, it may be that no USB-C cable works...).
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The USB 3.0 cable in front of me is thinner (including outer insulation) than a single wire on a 4-pin molex connector in my desktop.
Those so called "molex connectors" are actually made by several companies. Molex is a company, not a type of connector though Molex is one of the companies that makes the ones you are referencing. TE Connectivity for example sells an effectively identical connector in their Mate-N-Lok line. People know what you mean but I actually run a company that makes wire harnesses and if you came to me and said "molex connector", I would stare blankly at you until you clarified which of the thousands of different types of connectors made by Molex you were referring to.
Those connectors housings can accommodate terminals that will use everything from 14AWG wire all the way to 30AWG. They also cost less than a quarter and the terminals are a few cents each. FAR cheaper than any USB cable and easier to work with as well.
I have lots of people in my life that need ZERO ports on their laptop.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
They do not allow it. Apples are toys that are not expandable. They want to keep them crippled pieces of garbage so that you are forced to upgrade. That is why they do not support external monitors with this new scam.
So what does 20 or 40gb/s get me? My HD can only transfer data at what 8gpbs? and read/write the disk much much slower. My wireless network connection is 54mbps at max, maybe 100 if im on the wire (or gig if im lucky) but by the time it gets to my ISP, i'm what 30-50MBPS maybe a bit more if its a good day?
This is ridiculous. It was bad enough that Thunderbolt used the mini Display Port connector, now they're overloading USB-C which was already overloaded plenty. Overloading can be an incredibly useful technique when used in things like class operators in object oriented programming languages, but overloading physical connectors is a quick and easy way to break EVERYTHING. Look - the USB-C port on the MacBook Pro prevents you from using wall power and peripherals at the same time, and there's only one of them. Stop this madness. Computers are versatile tools and this is going to seriously limit their usefulness in the long term. Different connectors for different tasks, enough connectors to do those tasks simultaneously, has real world benefits that aren't negotiable in serious usage.
This trend has been evil since the iDevices launched with their all-in-one connector.
My prediction is that we see an awful lot of devices move to this model followed by sales dropping through the floor as the cracks start showing in real world usage. Maybe we'll see a resurgence of desktop sales at that point, assuming the motherboard manufacturers don't blow the goat as well.
"Linux users complain that Linux do not support basic usb3c functionality." linking to a twit that links to a picture of a cheap laptop from China launched two weeks after this announcement that doesn't have chips to handle any protocol.
all +5 comments will attest that Linux is dead on the desktop.
now usb c connectors are genetic carriers, just like the serial port.
anyone remember the hell that it was to get simple things like parity to match?
now it will be the same, but you won't be able to fix on software. go out and buy a new device. or a hardware translator.
hello drawer full of adapter! the thing that USB freed me from will be back thanks to this. and kickstarter will be full of projects trying to sell spartan boards with the promise that you will translate several chips in software.
As advertised, there are three cable options using the type-C connectors, and active cables are required for the higher speed. It isn't even clear if normal type-C cables support 20Gbps operation. What a mess.
Intel originally promised cheap passive optical cables, which would have averted this insanity. A simple optical cable with a couple conductors for power and a unique connector would've been infinitely simpler and easily compatible over many generations. Fibre optics have also been developed which are extremely robust.
Why would anyone invest in a confusing technology which necessitates expensive active cables that must be replaced each generation?
Even without DMA accesses, a USB device can pretend to be a keyboard and type commands into your current session.
Bullshit. Not only do they support external monitors, they actively advertise support for external monitors. They list the specs of what external monitors their new 13" MacBook supports right on their site (which is pretty much every monitor on the market).
If not, not interested.