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Intel Drops Thunderbolt 3 Royalty, Adds CPU Integration and Works Closely With Microsoft (windowscentral.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Windows Central: Over the last few days, Thunderbolt 3 has been a hot topic amongst Windows users especially with its notable absence with the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop. Part of the problem is adoption, integration, cost, and consumer confusion according to Microsoft. Intel is aware of the current roadblocks to Thunderbolt 3 implementation, which adds 40Gbps data transfers along with charging and display support for USB Type-C. Today, the company announced numerous changes to its roadmap to speed up its adoption, including: Dropping royalty fees for the Thunderbolt protocol specification starting next year; Integrating Thunderbolt 3 into future Intel CPUs. The good news here is that Intel is dropping many of the roadblocks with today's announcement. By subtracting the licensing costs for Thunderbolt 3 and integrating into the CPU, Intel can finally push mass adoption. Getting back to Microsoft, Intel noted that the two companies are already working closely together with the latest Creators Update bringing more OS support for the protocol. Roanne Sones, general manager, Strategy, and Ecosystem for Windows and Devices at Microsoft added that such cooperation would continue with even more OS-level integration coming down the road.
Who else is Intel "working closely" with?
So the question for someone looking to buy a revised MacBook Pro this year would be, buy it now for a battle-tested Thunderbolt 3 connection, or wait for the chip integration for performance gains even though it will be a fist gen thing next year...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I would hope so. I'd love it if the USB-C/Thunderbolt port became the new standard port that's built into everything and is used for everything. For any device you have, you will only need to plug in a single cable to a port following a single standard (excepting when you need an additional power cable). I'd even like to see it used on servers. I could see a scenario where every server in a rack is plugged into a single Thunderbolt switch/hub that provides networking, DAS/NAS/SAN, KVM, lights-out management, everything.
With the protocol now being royalty-free, what's stopping AMD from adding it to their CPUs?
Just another step towards locking out any OS but Windows 10, including locking out older versions of Windows. Either that, or badly cripple the few OS's that do still run on it, likely requiring approval by MS in order to get their boot loader signed for UEFI Secure Boot.
And right while people are finding out that even Enterprise edition Windows 10 refuses to stop talking to external servers (including ad servers), even though companies pay through the nose for this specific version of Windows so that they can prevent just that sort of thing.
Make no mistake about it. Microsoft wants to own your computer, and intends on leaving you no choice in the matter, except perhaps not to own a computer at all. We're going to be seeing a lot worse coming down the pike very shortly at this rate.
Being "royalty free" can mean different things, so I checked the source, which is quite explicit about this point:
In addition to Intel's Thunderbolt silicon, next year Intel plans to make the Thunderbolt protocol specification available to the industry under a nonexclusive, royalty-free license. Releasing the Thunderbolt protocol specification in this manner is expected to greatly increase Thunderbolt adoption by encouraging third-party chip makers to build Thunderbolt-compatible chips.
So yeah, seems there shouldn't be any legal reasons preventing AMD to implement it.
Nobody wants cables to be expensive - cables are expendable goods, prone to mechanical wear out, and you need to have a lot of them to be prepared for many situations, some of which might never occur.
A connector standard that requires expensive active electronics as an integral part of any cable is sure to fail with regards to mass market penetration.
Time. Chances are that Intel will have on-CPU TB3 out at least one generation ahead of AMD because they probably had a head start on the integration work. This might be part of Intel's response to Zen turning out much better than AMD's last few architectures. Zen has USB 3.1 so Core having TB3 might be a reasonable answer to that.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
USB-C is the connector type, not the protocol. Thunderbolt 3 is the protocol. All current Thunderbolt 3 implementations use USB-C as the connector type. Not all USB-C connectors attach to devices that support the Thunderbolt 3 protocol. It's essentially 1 cable/connector that supports many different protocols (USB 3.1, Ethernet, Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort, etc).
Your wish will never happen because Intel chips will still be the only CPU's allowed to use it. Intel's problem with Thunderbolt has always been that it won't license it on FRAND terms to all comers (including AMD), as a result even if it's cheaper it will be integrated into nothing. USB-3 license costs are pennies and there is no requirement on who you are to use it.
Thunderbolt has massive restrictions on WHO is allowed to use it, even if they drop the price to the same as USB they will never allow it to be used as broadly as USB. The result will remain the same, you'll be able to use it only with computers with Intel chips in them and peripherals strictly for that computer. Intel will never get Thunderbolt right because they will continue to try to use it as monopoly leverage.
Is this still architected so that anybody who can stick a cable in the side of your computer can suck down its memory contents?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Thunderbolt has massive restrictions on WHO is allowed to use it..
I wish the TFS would've linked to Intel's actual press release. The article that the summary linked to left out one of the biggest pieces: "...next year Intel plans to make the Thunderbolt protocol specification available to the industry under a nonexclusive, royalty-free license..." which then goes on to explicitly state they want third-party chipset makers producing Thunderbolt chipsets. This announcement is NOT about them letting motherboard makers slap the port and an Intel chipset on their board royalty-free. This is about letting other chipset makers produce their own TB chips royalty-free. They are basically releasing it industry-wide, and it will no longer be limited to Intel chipsets.
So yes, expect to see AMD-compatible motherboards sporting TB3 support. I'd be more doubtful that AMD will be able to license it for integration into their CPUs (though they might; certainly wouldn't be remotely the first Intel technology they licensed to put directly in their silicon), but the new licensing does not preclude third-party chipsets being put onto AMD-supporting motherboards. And I completely expect the likes of Asus, Gigabyte, ASRock, etc. to do this. Probably on their high-end/gamer boards only at first, but still.
Do you mean Apple deciding to ditch their proprietary ADB in favour of USB?
Apple adopting using UNIX as the core of their OS and having it certified as conforming to the Single UNIX Specification?
Apple using an implementation of the OpenStep specification as their GUI app development framework?
Apple replacing ADC with DVI?
Apple contributing their mini DisplayPort plug to the DisplayPort consortium, royalty free?
Apple replacing their proprietary MagSave power connectors with USB-C?
Or did you have some other examples in mind?
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Apple Inc, with that lovely $800 billion market capitalization and $300 billion-ish pile of cache.
Good Lord, Apple! Clean your cache!
-- sudon't
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