Rumor: Intel Light Peak coming in first half of 2011

[Emil]

Intel Light Peak, a high-speed connection standard capable of transferring data at 10 gigabits per second, may be arriving sooner than expected. Light Peak is "now on track to appear in products in the first half of 2011—and likely earlier in the year than later," according to an industry source quoted by CNET.

The 10Gbps speed, which is twice the speed of USB 3.0, is simultaneous in both directions. It also has the potential to scale to 100Gbps in the next 10 years. In other words, this isn't vaporware; Intel has demonstrated the technology twice before.

If past reports are true, Apple could be among the first to incorporate the technology. It's long been whispered that it was actually Apple that conceived the idea for Light Peak, and the company reportedly helped Intel guide the development of the standard. Interestingly, Apple recently used Intel as an excuse for not supporting USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed). We speculated that Intel was delaying support for SuperSpeed on purpose, due to Light Peak.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/41005-rumor-intel-light-peak-coming-in-first-half-of-2011.html

 

[cardriverx]

Im tellin you, Intel is pulling a pro power move. Delay USB 3.0 mass adoption so that they can get light peak to market before. I think this has a big chance of succeding, unlike firewire.

USB3 has yet to really catch on (in terms of the number of products designed for usb3), and being intel, lightpeak will be on every mobo/laptop/HTPC/whatever once they release it, something only intel could do.

I would love to replace all my SATA/monitor/whatever wires with just lightpeak wires. It would be nice.

 

[Neojt]

That is awsome news

Hope we get many intefaces compatiblity. I see lots of use at my compagnie as we have alot of big backup to extenal drive that take WAY TOO LONG. This would be a perfect solution to transfer 200+gb quick

 

[superphoenix]

I'm concerned if it can power a device or not.

 

[cardriverx]

superP, Intel said they were going to use a copper wire (I assume around the fiber) for power

 

[taea00]

I can't wait for Light Peak. I'm actually surprised how many IT people I know that don't know what Light Peak is. It's going to be insane, I'm just afraid the hardware is going to be rediculously priced. I haven't heard whether this was targetted at high end equipment or for the common consumer.

 

[slh28]

Just in time, before USD 3.0 gets close to mass adoption

 

[Jesse]

I think you mean to say 10 gigabits/second, not gigabytes.

 

[grvalderrama]

superphoenix said:
I'm concerned if it can power a device or not.

I don't think so, since it uses light pulses and not electrical. So, I believe the light pulse will send the data but the device it self would need to have its own power supply.

prismatics said:
I think you mean to say 10 gigabits/second, not gigabytes.

Not really, it's 10GB per second. The magic of light

 

[Jesse]

No, its 10Gb/s, not 10GB/s

http://techresearch.intel.com/ProjectDetails.aspx?Id=143
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Peak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte

 

[TeamworkGuy2]

prismatics said:
I think you mean to say 10 gigabits/second, not gigabytes.

Yea, I was just going to say that.
If it were actually 10 gigabytes/s, even with overhead that would leave around 4 gigabytes/s. Man, that would be amazing!!!

 

[grvalderrama]

Yeah, that probably it's the value (10Gb, which, according to wikipedia, it's about 1.250GB/s) per lane. What would be the point of replacing Pci-Express (for example) by this technology if data would not be transfered in a faster way?

 

[Timonius]

Is it possible that another 'format war' is on the brink?

 

[zenpanda]

Hey if the devices utilizing Light Peak are priced at or below USB 3.0 devices, then I would be happy to adopt Light Peak, and I'm pretty sure others would do the same as well. Over the next couple of years starting in 2011, Intel should make a lot of money if they introduce Light Peak to as many users as possible and as quickly as possible, before USB 3.0 takes an even greater hold. This will definitely require competitive pricing on the part of light peak device manufacturers.

 

[tonylukac]

So it doesn't provide power over the connection, so it can't charge devices or power them. Epic fail.

 

[agissi]

cardriverx said:
superP, Intel said they were going to use a copper wire (I assume around the fiber) for power

Something tells me they're probably smart enough to do this.

 

[Darth Shiv]

*Yawn*... 10gb/s? What's the point? Why don't they release it at something decent like 20, 30, 50?
Speed of light my ***.
Summary... it's not that fast (only double USB 3.0 and USB 3.0 has been on boards for how long??), it can't power devices and it is a proprietry Intel standard. Is there incentive for hardware manufacturers to support this platform?
Oh and of course USB3.0 has the advantage that it is backwards compatible with USB2 and earlier so it already has a tonne of devices that it can support.

Also for those who say the speed for external storage is amazing, USB3 covers that fine as well. 4.8gb/s is more than a rotating disk will be pushing out for a little while to come. I just don't see the relevance unless Intel is giving a) some decent bandwidth on what is already available and b) some devices that can make use of this.

 

[sMILEY4ever]

Darth Shiv said:
*Yawn*... 10gb/s? What's the point? Why don't they release it at something decent like 20, 30, 50?
Speed of light my ***.
Summary... it's not that fast (only double USB 3.0 and USB 3.0 has been on boards for how long??), it can't power devices and it is a proprietry Intel standard. Is there incentive for hardware manufacturers to support this platform?
Oh and of course USB3.0 has the advantage that it is backwards compatible with USB2 and earlier so it already has a tonne of devices that it can support.

Also for those who say the speed for external storage is amazing, USB3 covers that fine as well. 4.8gb/s is more than a rotating disk will be pushing out for a little while to come. I just don't see the relevance unless Intel is giving a) some decent bandwidth on what is already available and b) some devices that can make use of this.

This.
But hey, it's a step forward.

 

[7410xas]

i wonder what mcafee has to do with this...

 

[cardriverx]

Darth, they said they should be able to hit 100 gb/s in the future with lightpeak

 

[klepto12]

well fiber doe shave tons of potential and up to 100Gb's which would be amazing but yes Intel says there will be a copper wire around fiber so that it can handle power. IMO there is still a use for USB 3.0 since it would allow for all previous usb device to work on it and would still be considerably faster than usb 2.0 i think there is room for both in the industry and intel should realize that. either way we are getting some amazing advancements in 2011 i for one love that the bios is being updated after 20 years and lightpeak and amd and intel's new cpu architectures wow can anyone else say 2011 will be amazing.

 

[mikeusru]

Two questions:
Is there currently anything that won't bottleneck the speeds of USB3 or LightPeak? SSDs aren't that fast... I guess you can use it as HDMI or something? Is there any real world application difference between the formats right now?

Also, I don't get the whole "intel didn't adopt USB3" thing. What does that mean, exactly? Intel manufactures CPUs, not motherboards.... there are plenty of USB3 add-on cards. Or is it because Intel manufactures the various chips that go into motherboards, and those have to read USB3?

 

[MrAnderson]

I doubt Apple "conceived the idea for Light Peak"; however, I would believe that it convenced Intel to not go USB 3.0 if they both knew they could get LightPeak going not too longer after USB 3.0 is out the door. Also considering (I think I read some where) that LightPeak could transport USB 3.0 over its infrastructure...

 

[kazarm]

I don´t mind to get new interfaces, but they shouldn´t try to suppress USB 3.

They can only delay USB3 anyway. I think LightPeak is more a threat to SATA, because in a few years the new SSD drives will be too fast for SATA.

Does anyone know if a cheap fiber optic cable exist, that can endure a lot of bending. As far as i know the present glass fibers will break if they are bended too many times or too much.

 

[Razerblade]

This is going to be so good. I'm not sure if there will be anyway to use this on old hardware, maybe you will be able to get a expansion card but I doubt it. Could cost alot for this but sounds great!