News Intel bets on LightPeak

Yeah, because we need another proprietary technology from Intel, to ensue their monopoly.

 

It wouldnt be any more limiting than IN SPEC USB cables, which is 5m for high-speed and 3m for low-speed and guestimated at 3m for USB 3, and even 3m is pretty long and sufficient for most people.

But, optical could allow much longer cables AND also eliminate interference, its why it was included in the USB 3.0 spec as well.

 

LMAO at the AMD fangirls pouring scorn on this just because it has Intel in the title.

 

That's because Intel ruined USB 1.0 making the world wait for USB 1.1 to have a system that actually worked. As for distance limits unless you want to be running kilometers of cable then power conductors bundled with the fibre wont make any difference USB is only limited to 5M because of the inductance and capacitance of the data pairs, neither of which affect the power wires.

The whole point of frequency multiplexing is that you don't need multiple fibers.

Moriquendi

 

No, its because the consumer would loose out in the end.

USB 2 will stay the standard, Intel will do everything they can to make sure their technology overtakes USB 3. That way only they stand to profit.

Fiber is expensive, not to make but to buy. Who honestly thinks that these cables will be priced competitively, I expect to see Best Buy HDMI cable prices on these considering who is releasing this.

USB 3 is here, now! What would it take to add it to a chipset, why cant we use the existing technology that works? Why do we have to wait for a closed standard?

 

I'm sorry but I have to say that Intel can clearly justify what they are doing. Why should they adopt someone elses "standard" and not fully develope their own. Who says Intel has to fully implement USB3 when they have an alternative which can work more than twice as fast? Would you? Would AMD? Don't talk sh!te

 

Can see this backfiring if board manufacturers don't add support though they probably will.
They'll have a hard time convincing buisnesses/users to move entirely over to this format as it would obsolete all the usb devices they have up to now. I don't see why they would compete anyhow isn't this aimed at high bandwidth transfers ala eSATA?

 

Because it's additional hassle for consumers to use their own standard?

I can just see it now: External Hard Drive ships with USB3 as its only form of connectivity since it is widely available and still very functional at 4.8Gbps. Consumer only has LightPeak and USB2 connectivity on PC since Intel is not supporting USB3. Consumer must use USB2 speeds or purchase [likely more expensive due to royalties for Intel] LightPeak-ready enclosure.

The advantages of using a widely accepted (and backwards compatible) standard are great. Sometimes pure speed is not the sole factor in the decision.

This seems far more practical. The speed could likely be a useful factor here. Things like power become moot in this scenario as well, and flexability isn't as demanded either.

 

well regarding the breakability of glass optical fibres, there are institutions trying to develop plastic based ones... not sure if there are in the market right now but they could be an option instead of using glass... although the audio optical cable thing itself is quite durable although it might be slightly rigid and such but such factor being that the cable has to be floppy is not something i really want either

oh and showerhead said "obsolete all the usb devices" but in the article it does say that it supports USB without the power...like backward compatible

 

As you can see I put the "standard" in that way as USB3 is NOT the current standard. It is still in its infancy and components using the "standard" are few and far between. You can count on one hand how many X58 boards have them.

This is a great move by Intel to push the boundarys beyond the lowest common denominator. I have eSata sockets ont the back of my board but have never used them. Whats one more socket that runs faster than the rest?

 

while i would love to see higher thruput connectors as a standard, i dot think people will want to move away from USB, maybe if intel figures out a way to make their conector directly compatable with a USB connector. I think a new stadard will have a hard time catching on without hybridizing with USB first.

 

USB in general is the standard, though. The progression from 2 to 3 is a pretty simple matter because if you have a device supporting USB3 but your PC doesn't, it works. If your PC supports it but your device doesn't, it works. People can very easily shift between the two. The few USB3 ports out currently are already in use because of this, just not at USB3 speeds yet. Name a consumer product using LightPeak right now. It hardly even exists outside of Intel labs. By the time it does exist there's a good chance that USB will have made a large shift to 3.0.

 

This is where you arguement is flawed. You have motherboards though not very many X58 boards with both USB2 and USB3 together with eSata sockets. Whats one more socket that is far more superior than the rest in addition to the older ones?

Intel are doing nothing wrong here so stop the negativity. This forward thinking should he highly commended.

 

An add-on chip or board fixes the problem.

There are currently 34 Intel boards listen on Newegg with USB 3.0.
There are currently ZERO Amd motherboards with USB 3.0.
Have fun with your AMD.

Intel and AMD have a technology sharing agreement.

Even if that only applies to processors, Intel cannot and will not lock AMD or Nvidia or even add-on board makers out of this as it could create a monopoly situation. Something Intel has been fighting with for many years, governments are just waiting for an miss-step by Intel.

 

I'd love to see something more elegant than USB 3, which has got 8+ conductors in a single USB cable, making it as stiff and inflexible as a bloody piece of steel cable, not to mention the 'mini USB 3' connector which is actually twice as wide as the USB 2 version and thus a major fail for portable devices.

Light Peak with two copper conductors for power should be pretty cool.

 

The beauty of having them all be same is that a motherboard manufacturer can place eight USB on the back or so, pins for four more on your case, and forget about it. No money sent to Intel for LightPeak, no additional controller of any sort to place on, no worry of just how many LightPeak connections users might want. Same goes for case manufacturers, just place a handful of USB3 on the front and you're golden.

If anything, this seems like it's more of an eSata replacement (and networking like Krikket said perhaps). External SSDs are about the only thing that would ever draw over 4.8Gbps in the next few years and you usually only need one so manufacturers can get away with only putting on one then stocking up on USB. Looking at my own computer usage: four powered USB devices, two USB chargers, one USB printer, two front USB ports kept ready for flash drives. None of the four devices would ever need that bandwidth, just mouse and keyboard etc. The two chargers just draw power and use whatever port is most common. Printer, again does not need the bandwidth so it may as well use the very popular USB. Flash drives could possibly use the bandwidth? I doubt it. But then their main use is portable storage that can be used anywhere, and everywhere has USB.

Perhaps others are different, but it seems to me that being common and standardized is often more useful than simply being the fastest. In that regard USB is already here to stay, it's dug itself in so deep with peripherals and chargers for every device imaginable that it won't go away. LightPeak, imo, could at best be an additional support function for a handful of devices.

 

How energy efficient is the tech? I know we're talking small currents here but is turning electrical to optical and back to electrical again as efficient as a standard copper cable?

Also, I'd love to see a standard with round connections so there is none of that "Wrong way up again" thing we all do from time to time. Easily done in a basic optical connection, the 3.5" tosslink is based on the 3.5" plug size.

Or maybe do a deal with apple and use a magsafe connection with a round formfactor. I'm thinking of a laptop with a row of small shallow circular holes along the edge. Each magnestised to take the end of an optical cable that will provide uber data speeds and enough power for the average mobility device. Put any device in any socket.

Alternatively we could just drop the wires all together and use something wireless

Hold on... doesn't Sony want us to do that.

SONY!!!! Agghhhhhh I'd stick with Intel thank you very much

 

I may be completely wrong but I don't think people are seeing the whole picture. Intel are obviously using this as a test-bed for complete optical communication of system busses.

I like the idea personaly as it can only push bandwidth of all the device busses up, and I think that is the only way to improve the GFX to an extent that'll make us do more than raise one eye-brow.

Also, on the power issue, a laser is in itself a form of energy. That is why it's meassured in W/KW. I may be wrong again but surely such a precise power source wouldn't require a load of conditioning circuitry either.

Go on, proove me wrong and I'll just go and sit in the corner and sulk while muttering about how stupid and far fetched I sounded.

 

Plastic Fibre, they are here, cheap to produce at the cost of Running Length. ( 10 - 20M compare to 100M+ , but why would you need a 100M+ cable for your peripherals? )

You get a Copper Coating on top of the Fibre Cable itself. Which means you are still using 2 Cables inside Lightpeak, but you get Power as well.

Consider this to replace every single connection you have, internally and externally, SATA, USB, Firewire, Etherent... etc....

Not to mention the cable would be even thinner then USB 2.0 ( When you consider USB 3.0 is like Ethernet CAT 6 thick.... that is ridiculous......... )

 

The power of the lasers used for this kind of optical transmission is mW - it is not a sensible form of power transfer and would be massively inefficient anyway - converting from optical energy to electricity is difficult hence all the problems with solar cells.

Optical transmission would not speed up on board buses because they are not limited by long lengths of cable or the need to use a limited number of cables. Optical is overly complex for this purpose hence inefficient examples below:

Digital Signal (send) -> tiny length of copper (with as many channels as necessary for bandwidth) -> Digital Signal (receive)

as opposed to

Digital Signal (send) -> Optical converter chip -> laser source -> Fiber Optic -> photo diode -> Optical converter chip -> Digital Signal (receive)