Light Peak interconnect is ready, but built on copper

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Intel: Light Peak interconnect is ready, but built on copper
By Jose Vilches, TechSpot.com
Published: January 10, 2011, 8:00 AM EST
Intel’s is greeting us with some good and bad news this week. In an interview with IDG News, the company’s executive vice president David Perlmutter said that Light Peak is ready to be implemented by device makers. But as rumored, its first implementation will use old copper wires for data transmission, instead of fiber optics, in order to save costs. "The copper came out very good, surprisingly better than what we thought," Perlmutter said.

The company would presumably still be able to hit its initial target of 10Gbps speeds using copper cabling which, according to Intel, will be more than adequate for the majority of user needs today. By comparison, the relatively new USB 3.0 protocol sports a maximum transfer rate of 4.8Gbps. That doesn’t mean that Intel isn’t working on a fiber optic connection. Eventually they will make the move to fiber optic cabling – with the potential of reaching up to 100Gbps transmission speeds after a few years – it’s just going to take longer for it to be implemented.



Permutter didn’t say which companies are the first supporters and when complete products will be shipped. Rumors have pointed at Apple and Sony as two of the main forces pushing Intel to get Light Peak out the door, so we’ll be looking forward to any announcements from them in the upcoming months.
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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41901-intel-light-peak-interconnect-is-ready-but-built-on-copper.html

So, now that Intel has finally released LightPeak which is twice as fast as USB3.0 (and uses copper thus addressing the self powering issue), will USB3 go the way of Betamax or will LightPeak go the way of BetaMax.
 
Lightpeak will go the same way as Firewire. You see some devices with it but it will never be as popular as USB.
 
The_Unnamed said:
Lightpeak will go the same way as Firewire. You see some devices with it but it will never be as popular as USB.
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Dunno about that seeing the interface was designed with anything from storage to displays in mind so you can bin sata/sas/hdmi etc.

I really do hope it takes off.
 
If this does catch on, you can expect computers in a few years from now to have 25+ Lightpeak connectors that adapt depending on what you plug in on the back panel, instead of the myriad of ports we see now.
 
Yep, no reason to drop USB.
We are already at 4GB/s which is fast enough for just about everything and have eSATA for those needing higher speed for storage.

Doubt this will pick up, even if Intel are pushing it.

It's like the old saying, you need the right product at the right time. This is the wrong time, USB is going strong and no-one can see a reason to go with anything else and more importantly it'll mean no backward compatibility.
 
kayvee said:
It'll end up being an Apple thing only :)
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And probably Sony. I honestly believe those 2 companies do this sort of thing deliberately to force people into buying only certain products for their own product lines. Profit first, choice second.
 
Gnome said:
And probably Sony. I honestly believe those 2 companies do this sort of thing deliberately to force people into buying only certain products for their own product lines. Profit first, choice second.
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True story.
 
Specifically why I used Betamax as the comparison point - Beta was a superior technology but 'closed' and expensive - so in the end, VHS won.

I wonder if Business Schools teach execs these kinds of lessons from the history of technology - these lessons are all there yet company execs don't seem to learn from them.
 
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