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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).
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
And for most users, that one cable is going to be a bog-standard USB 3.1 passive cable, that can still be used for 20Gbps Thunderbolt, as well as USB 3.1 and DisplayPort. This is going to be massive news for consumer docks.
If you absolutely need more than 2GB/s for your attached RAID/GPU then you will need an active Thunderbolt cable to reach 40Gbps.
I'm sure this use case was part of the USB Type C plan.
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.
And I look forward to getting a bunch of stuff at yard sales and flea markets that "doesn't work" for basically free.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Don't worry, things will still be nice and confusing: It is valid to use a "Type C" connector in conjunction with a USB2 chipset(at least on the peripheral end, and probably in practice on the computer end). Further, if the "Type C" connector is actually USB3, there is the matter of "Alternate mode".
"Alternate mode" allows the Type C jack and cable to act as a conduit for an entirely different protocol(Displayport and MHL have previously been announced, Intel's announcement presumably means that thunderbolt is along for the ride); but only if the system has the hardware necessary to implement whatever the other protocol is, and that hardware is suitably connected to the Type C jack in question. It doesn't actually give a USB 3.1(gen1 or gen2, yes there's that difference as well) device the ability to natively handle the other protocol in the USB silicon, merely to politely carry it from one end to the other, if the upstream device can generate it and the downstream device can accept it.
So, when you combine this with the inevitable variations in how much power is available(spec allows for up to 100watts; but given that very few laptops, much less littler widgets, even have a hundred watt brick for their own needs, it is clearly the case that most Type C ports will be good for substantially less); a Type C port can do almost anything; but is required to do effectively nothing beyond acting as a USB 2 slave device and not starting any fires when plugged in. It might have full USB 3 silicon, it might not. It might support 10GB/s traffic, it might only handle half that; it might deliver 100 watts of power on request, it might be incapable of doing much besides browning out without a powered hub to protect it. It might have implemented one or more 'Alternate mode' protocols, it might support none.
It will certainly be exciting, at least...