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Thunderbolt (originally codenamed Light Peak) is an interface for connecting peripheral devices to a computer via an expansion bus. Thunderbolt was developed by Intel and brought to market with technical collaboration from Apple Inc. It was introduced commercially on Apple's updated MacBook Pro lineup on February 24, 2011, using the same port and connector as Mini DisplayPort.
Thunderbolt essentially combines PCI Express and DisplayPort into a new serial data interface that can be carried over longer and less costly cables. Because PCI Express is widely supported by device vendors and built into most of Intel's modern chipsets, Thunderbolt can be added to existing products with relative ease. Thunderbolt driver chips fold the data from these two sources together, and split them back apart again for consumption within the devices. This makes the system backward compatible with existing DisplayPort hardware upstream of the driver.
The interface was originally designed to use flexible optical fiber cables, but a version using conventional copper wiring was also developed to furnish the desired 10 Gb/s bandwidth at lower cost. Intel's implementation of the port adapter folds Thunderbolt and DisplayPort data together, allowing both to be carried over the same cable at the same time. A single Thunderbolt port supports hubs as well as a daisy chain of up to seven Thunderbolt devices; up to two of these devices may be high-resolution displays using DisplayPort.[5] Apple sells existing DisplayPort adapters for DVI, dual-link DVI, HDMI, and VGA output from the Thunderbolt port, showing broad compatibility.

Specs:
Maximum Length - 3 meters maximum (copper)
Hot pluggable - Yes
Daisy chain - Yes, up to 6 devices[3]
External - Yes
Connector - Mini DisplayPort
Data signal - Yes
Bandwidth - 10 Gbit/s PCIe bi-directional
10 Gbit/s Displayport
100 Gbit/s (soon)
Protocol - PCI Express, DisplayPort v1.1a

complacent wrote:i like that you can run damn near everything through it, but i fear for all the hubs and adapters that are going to flood the market.

Raven wrote:This is neat tech, but does anyone else think that laptop computers are on the way out? Tablets are taking off now.

Sabre wrote:Show me a tablet with SLI video cards, RAID'ed HD's and 6 cores and I'll think it will take over the market... till then, nope. Tablets are great for light work, but they are not going to replace laptops for people who do real work on the go.

Raven wrote:

Sabre wrote:Show me a tablet with SLI video cards, RAID'ed HD's and 6 cores and I'll think it will take over the market... till then, nope. Tablets are great for light work, but they are not going to replace laptops for people who do real work on the go.

My point is that people like us, who need powerful mobile computing, are in the minority.

Intel is reportedly working on a new interconnect technology capable of pushing data between computers five times faster than its just-launched Thunderbolt technology. Slated to arrive in 2015, it will be based on silicon photonics which combines silicon components and optical networking.

Wednesday during a press event in New York, Jeff Demain, strategy director of circuits and system research at Intel Labs, said the new tech will provide speeds of up to 50 gigabits per second over distances of up to 100 meters, whether it's a connection between PCs or between external drives, smartphones and tablets.

He also indicated that the new tech will also cost less to build because the components will be created using existing silicon manufacturing techniques. "We have to use the silicon manufacturing technologies we know," Demain said. "That's what the promise of the technology is. It is based on a silicon foundation."

Furthermore, Intel expects the new tech to help propel the successors of 1080p into consumer living rooms. As it stands now, image resolutions are slated to quadruple by the middle of the year, requiring a larger pipeline to push the massive loads of video data from set-top boxes and other devices to HDTVs. 50 gigabits per second should handle that kind of virtual haul.

During the presentation, Demain showed mock-up cables that will supposedly carry the data. Based on the current design, these will actually be thinner than cables currently used for USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt. The new tech will also follow Thunderbolt's lead and support both DisplayPort and PCI-Express protocols as well as other unnamed protocols.

On paper, Intel's Thunderbolt looks like an easy winner over the relatively new USB 3 standard. The USB extension offers 10x the bandwidth of USB 2 and supports full duplex operation, but is limited to 'just' 5Gbps. Thunderbolt—even the cut-back, copper-wire version that's standard on new Macbook Pros—offers 10Gbps of bi-directional bandwidth. Intel's new standard is up to 4x faster than USB 3, but a new article at Extremetech argues that speed is far from everything.

Thunderbolt, the article argues, is dangerously close to slipping into obscurity. As of this writing, Apple is the only company that's embraced the standard. HP, in contrast, announced last March that it would stick with USB 3 instead. The company's worldwide marketing rep, Xavier Lauwaert, had this to say: "We did look at Thunderbolt]. We're still looking into it. Haven't found a value proposition yet. On the PC side, everybody seems to be content with the expansion of USB 3.0. Do we need to go into more fancy solutions? Not convinced yet."

...
A source within the telecom industry explained to Ars that active cables are commonly used at data rates above 5Gbps. These cables contain tiny chips at either end that are calibrated to the attenuation and dispersion properties of the wire between them. Compensating for these properties "greatly improves the signal-to-noise ratio" for high-bandwidth data transmission.
...
"Unlike ordinary passive cables that can be used at lower data rates, the unprecedented speed of the new Thunderbolt technology places unique demands on the physical transmission media," according to Gennum's website. "The GN2033 provides the sophisticated signal boosting and detection functions required to transfer high-speed data without errors across inexpensive Thunderbolt copper cables."

Our telecom source noted that Intel made an unusual choice in also using active cabling for future optical-based iterations of Thunderbolt. Passive cabling is more common, but active cabling could offer some advantages. For one, active cables could combine fiber optics with electrical cabling for power transmission. Another good reason to use active optical cables, accordin