Intel demonstrates Light Peak on a laptop, says 10Gbps speeds are only the beginning
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted May 4th 2010 2:56PM
posted May 4th 2010 2:56PM
Folks in Brussels for Intel's European research showcase got to get their hands on the company's Light Peak this week, with the first demonstration of the optical cable technology running on a laptop. Outfitted with a 12mm square chip that converts the optical signal into data the machine can read, two separate HD video streams were piped to a nearby TV, which displayed them with the help of a converter box -- a necessary evil until the Light Peak chips are developed for the display side of things. According to Justin Rattner, Intel's CTO, the current 10Gb / second speeds are just the beginning. "We expect to increase that speed dramatically. You'll see multiple displays being served by a single Light Peak connection. There's almost no limit to the bandwidth -- fibers can carry trillions of bits per second."
@Hamaki & others who down rank me, kindly accept my apologize.
but still for me: approaching ∞ ≠ 10^9+
zomg
How are they getting 10gbps speeds on a laptop though?
PCIe? What chipset is this laptop using?
@DoctarPeppar My guess is a proprietary intel mobo designed for just for LP
@Evster88
Yeah most likely using a custom chipset.
Still, i'd really like to see laptops with fast i\o ports in the future.
500 MB\sec is great but we can't even seem to get the mfgs to go that far...usb 3.0 and expresscard 2.0 are almost nonexistant in laptops today. So we're stuck with 40 MB\sec...ugh.......
Ah the future is still alive. Thanks Intel.
"There's almost no limit to the bandwidth -- fibers can carry trillions of bits per second."
So then, there is in fact a limit...trillions of bits per second.
@pjorg I haven't laughed that hard in awhile.
+1
@trainwrecka
they didnt say there wasnt a limit, they said there was ALMOST wasnt a limit. Stop trying to be a smart ass.
@nabberuk Sorry to have offended you; I just thought that dichotomy within the same sentence was amusing.
Not really sure how you have "almost" no limit, anyway. ;-)
For those who are whining that there are no uses for it, maybe on the consumer side, but dang; I can imagine this being a cable saver for television crews; even more so for the sports ones running out of a production truck
Why both with optical though? Optical isn't going to be faster than copper while we're still using copper traces on motherboards. And with copper we can easily carry power too. So what does this have over USB3?
@tux2005 Agreed that the built-in power is one of the best things about USB. Intel is supposedly 'working on' making the same LightPeak cable carry a copper power wire too.
As for the copper-fibre interconnect, most of the world's high-speed communications goes over fibre while connecting into ordinary electronics, and they seem to have somehow got around the 'but it has to go over copper first' issue.
10Gb is only twice USB3 speeds, so unless they really can increase the speed significantly - before launching - it doesn't really seem like a worthwhile step.
@xxxsam I thought the primary reason for using fiber for the world's high-speed electronics is performance over distance. Copper wires degrade much quicker than optical.
Yes, other devices are able to take advantage of the speeds of fiber while still dealing with ordinary electronics but I suspect they can because they are designed with communication buses which support those speeds.
The thing is, with the current PCI-Express bus that we have is there any advantage with optical over copper. These are peripheral devices, not network connections.
@xxxsam Thing about fiber optics is, once the fiber's in place the upgrade potential is well-nigh INFINITE. I don't think you can say that about USB 3.0. So I definitely think it's the right step instead of stopping by USB 3.0 on the way to faster speeds in the future.
I have a question, is Light Peak going to be used for home networking? That's where I see it making a huge difference. Right now we're still stuck with 802.11n or GBit Ethernet. Isn't it time we upgraded our networks?
@onecallednick
That's what I was wondering too. Mind you, I was unsure as to the distance this can operate at. According to a Wikipedia link ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Peak ) it can go up to 100m in length and still get 10 Gbit/sec. Oh, and Intel is apparently working on trying to bundle the optical wire with copper wire to carry power...yay!
@xxxsam
Worthwhile? Can you plug SATA into USB3 or FireWire or hdmi or dvi or fibrechannel etc..
Lightpeak is about one port, any connection.
Or even if as you say lightpeaks initial 10gbs is only twice usb3.0 (though there is more to throughput) then it at least means you could have 2 usb3.0 ports in the space of one.
It would seem from netbook owners you need a minimum of 10 ports to make a portable even barely useful just in case. Now they can have any and all ports with one port.
So basically affordable Fiber-optics for your home? Nice.
All this fuss about USB 3.0, and Lightpeak is gonna come in and ROCK THE JOINT!
I love it I love it! No speed up the process so we can all get our hands on it! I mean come on!
Ok peeps, it's time to sell all our gadgets (or better, recycle them in an environmentally friendly manner or donate to charity) and purchase Light Peak compatible devices only - for a simpler world. What say you?
;)
@Oflife
Will you pay for my gadgets? That'll be sweet!!
@Oflife
Hey everyone, Oflife here is offering to pay for our new devices that have light peak on them. What a nice guy. But you know what I think we'll be able to afford them when time comes. Thanks for the offer though lol!
@Oflife
Dude, you can plug in your existing devices Ito lightpeak. So keep em. Maybe even get that old parallel plotter going again
I actually thought about this type of technology a lot recently. Cables being the basic foundation of technology, but why stop there. In the future, i believe we could have light processors, and light memory, freeing us of the current clock speed cap, as light processors would generate much less heat than electric processors.
"fibers can carry trillions of bits per second."
I'm touching myself
Just a reminder to everyone that this is all vaporware until we see an actual product on the shelves.
"Intel hopes Light Peak will one day replace the host of other PC interconnects, including USB, DisplayPort and HDMI."
- Really? What was that previous "coexist with other protocols" official statement about then?
"An Intel spokesman said Light Peak hardware should start to become available to manufacturers by the end of this year."
- I've heard better promises from politicians. So far no one else (except Apple, maybe) has voiced support for the tech, and we all know what happened with Firewire. Superior spec? Check. Got creamed by slower, less efficient, USB 2.0 in the market? Check.
I'm happy Intel's demonstrating a new technology, but I'm really pissed that they're using their market position to freeze the tech landscape (via no USB 3.0 support) while they ready it.
Too many USB devices out there. I highly doubt this thing it gonna take over. Same reason why I doubt HTML5 will take over Flash, even with its mountain of problems.
If they're not using a 30-pin connector, they blew it...
One unified cable to rule them all would be awesome, let's face it, if this works out is there any need for much else?
I guess companies wouldn't like it, as they make money on the variety of the non-standardised hole the industry has dug itself.
I guess if we keep HDMI, DVI and USB as the physical incarnations of the plugs at either end and have the cable itself along with the ports on devices be lightpeak then it could be good. I assume USB will need a parralel copper wire in the cable though in case any devices connected require power.
This could be the last cable we ever need, and seeing as it's Intel I see there being a string chance of this.
Blah blah blah, lie lie lie!
wow
just
wow.
The future is fast approaching
@Stone632 Closing in at one second per second! \o/
no wonder Intel show little interest on USB 3.0
Damnnn....10GBps...what the world could do with that..lawl