Intel Adopts USB-C Connector For 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3, Supports USB 3.1, DP 1.2 179
MojoKid writes: The high speed Thunderbolt interface standard, which is used for everything from hyper-fast external storage solutions to external graphics cards, has been slow to take off. You can blame the high-priced Thunderbolt peripherals and the uber-expensive cables (at least when compared to your garden-variety USB cables). For most people, USB 3.0 is "good enough" and making a huge investment into the Thunderbolt ecosystem has been reserved for those in the professional video editing arena. However, Intel is looking to change all of that with Thunderbolt 3. Thunderbolt 3 once again doubles the maximum bandwidth, this time jumping from 20Gbps to a whopping 40Gbps. While that is impressive in its own right, the truly big news is that Thunderbolt 3 is moving away from the Mini DisplayPort connector and is instead adopting the USB-C connector. As a result Thunderbolt will also support USB 3.1 (which is currently spec'd at 10Gbps) and can optionally provide up to 100W of power (in compliance with the USB Power Delivery spec) to charge devices via USB-C (like the recently introduced 12-inch Apple MacBook).
One connector to rule them all. (Score:5, Funny)
We've finally done it. One connector for charge, data and display.
Intel's hardware developers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.
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It's ok, they should. If someone offers you a machine with only 1 and you need more than 1, don't buy it, that'll learn em.
Re:One connector to rule them all. (Score:5, Informative)
all of them will only offer one because of the rampant stupidity of the Consumers to want smaller and lighter.
Sadly most laptop consumers are weak waifs that can barely carry 3 pounds. Those of us that do real work on laptops want a 21 pound 21" laptop with at least 10 USB ports 2 serial and frigging lasers.
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A 21 pound, 21" notebook would mean you could skip leg and back day all you want.
Fuck that. I just want a charging port, external monitor and USB.
I just can't wait for the peripherals to get cheaper.
Re:One connector to rule them all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everyone needs more than one.
Whenever you post to /., remember that YOU'RE the weird one. You've got more rigorous demands than most people. There are lots and lots of people that don't need more than one port, and will be delighted that they don't have to even think about what sort of connector they'll need for whatever peripheral they have. Everything will come with USB-C, they've only got one port and nothing to sort out.
For those of us that need more, there are plenty of options, but man, I have lots of people in my life that need ZERO ports on their laptop.
They're all Apple users. (Score:2)
I have lots of people in my life that need ZERO ports on their laptop.
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I don't think it's fair to call those people stupid, they have reasons. Personally I agree with you, I want a 17" luggable with a fully performant CPU that is just selectively gimped when I'm running on battery. I find 17" can comfortably used on domestic flights with a bit of cramping, but otherwise works great for where I am 99% of the time.
The majority of people i see on an airplane have their little 13" things they need to run for 5 hour flights, then 2 hour meetings and 5 hour flights home, and are jus
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It's only really Apple that is obsessed with being the thinnest. Others manage to make far more practical machines (lighter, better screen, and at least two USB ports):
http://121ware.com/psp/PA121/L... [121ware.com]
http://121ware.com/lavie/x/ [121ware.com]
I have a LaVie X, the 15" model. It's excellent.
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Well obviously since they have a tendency of getting rid of CD drives on new laptops.
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Next one will have one connector that can do all three at the same time.
Re:One connector to rule them all. (Score:4, Funny)
To be fair they also slowed themselves down by trying to make all the connectors female to control the population.
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What are the security implications of a single cable? If I plug in my laptop to charge in an East Molvanian airport, will the outlet try to infect my computer with a low-level virus that attacks the data ports used for negotiating amperage?
There were good reasons to separate power and different kinds of data.
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Just buy or make a cable that doesn't connect to the data ports.
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You're basically plugging directly into your PCIe bus. It's fucking RETARDED security-wise.
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Any modern computers will not allow DMA access except for, you know, computers today that have Thunderbolt, FireWire, etc.
http://www.breaknenter.org/pro... [breaknenter.org]
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will the outlet try to infect my computer
Yes.
Re:One connector to rule them all. (Score:5, Interesting)
"Alternate mode" allows the Type C jack and cable to act as a conduit for an entirely different protocol(Displayport and MHL have previously been announced, Intel's announcement presumably means that thunderbolt is along for the ride); but only if the system has the hardware necessary to implement whatever the other protocol is, and that hardware is suitably connected to the Type C jack in question. It doesn't actually give a USB 3.1(gen1 or gen2, yes there's that difference as well) device the ability to natively handle the other protocol in the USB silicon, merely to politely carry it from one end to the other, if the upstream device can generate it and the downstream device can accept it.
So, when you combine this with the inevitable variations in how much power is available(spec allows for up to 100watts; but given that very few laptops, much less littler widgets, even have a hundred watt brick for their own needs, it is clearly the case that most Type C ports will be good for substantially less); a Type C port can do almost anything; but is required to do effectively nothing beyond acting as a USB 2 slave device and not starting any fires when plugged in. It might have full USB 3 silicon, it might not. It might support 10GB/s traffic, it might only handle half that; it might deliver 100 watts of power on request, it might be incapable of doing much besides browning out without a powered hub to protect it. It might have implemented one or more 'Alternate mode' protocols, it might support none.
It will certainly be exciting, at least...
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they didn't stop to think if they should.
They definitely should. It's a great connector - everything will be using it in the near future and then for a long time. I have twenty solder-pad connectors on the way from China for a "completely unrelated" project prototype (unrelated to anything USB has been proposed for - not even for traditional "computers", really).
If you think Micro-A USB is popular, wait until you see your grandkids getting devices with USB-C. Sure, it's no Anderson Powerpole, but it's th
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If you think Micro-A USB is popular, wait until you see your grandkids getting devices with USB-C.
Surely you can't be serious? USB has only been around for 20 years and in that time they have gone through 10 different types of plugs, 7 of which I have personally used and probably 5 of which most people would agree were "commonly used". We'll have a new plug in less than 10 years, probably less than 5. Unless you already have grandkids of walking age, I really can't agree with your prediction.
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People can have their Centronics parallel, HD-15 and RJ-45 crap - I'll take something less onerous, expensive, and/or fragile any day!
Fragile? I don't think any of those connectors could be called fragile compared to USB anything. Have you ever actually seen any of those connectors? The only thing fragile is that stupid retainer clip on the RJ-45 connector, those things break all the time.
Centronics could probably survive a nuclear blast from close range...
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If you want a connector that can take a direct hit, it was hard to beat a type 1 token ring connector.
Of course, the connector I wish were still in use was the Apple 30 pin connector. The advantage it had over the current Lightning connector is structural support. Just the connector was good enough to hold a tablet vertical in a docking station without issue, and could stand a lot of insertions and removals.
Adopts? (Score:2)
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Yeah, but the USB Implementers Forum has final say about who can use what USB port and why.
The use cases for USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt are different too. I wouldn't want a joystick plugging in via thunderbolt and I wouldn't want to plug in a RAID array full of hyper fast disks in via USB.
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Technically yes to both. Intel was a major backer of USB (partly why it's so CPU intensive these days - it means Intel gets to sell more CPUs!), and they did Thunderbolt as well.
USB C was something Apple gave the USB folks because they're just disgusted with the crap that is the USB connector and what they did to add USB 3.0 SuperSpeed support. Basic things like a symmetrical cable so you don't have to worry which end goes where, and cables that go in either way s
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> USB C was something Apple gave the USB folks
Huh?!
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USB C was something Apple gave the USB folks because they're just disgusted with the crap that is the USB connector
i second the 'huh?' from the other poster. Apple did grant the USB consortium some patents, but they were not involved with the design of the USB C connector at all. It was developed by a committee, with some fairly major contributions from Google.
2x or 4x the bandwidth is not enough (Score:3)
Just like USB or Ethernet, a new revision needs 10x the speed to be worthwhile.
Re:2x or 4x the bandwidth is not enough (Score:4, Insightful)
When 2x makes the difference between driving a screen at 30Hz vs. driving it at 60Hz, I'll take 2x.
And Thunderbolt 2 came out less than two years ago. How long has it taken to go from 1000BASE-T to 10GBASE-T?
Re:2x or 4x the bandwidth is not enough (Score:5, Funny)
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DVI-D can carry HDMI with audio, so... no.
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http://www.alciro.org/alciro/c... [alciro.org]
I seem to be missing the audio pins there, do you perhaps mean the other way around?
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HDMI has infinitely more audio capacity than DVI.
No it doesn't.
HDMI audio capacity is X Mbps (depending on revision, whether or not you want to count the auxiliary/ethernet/ARC channels as "audio capacity", etc.).
X is not infinite. HDMI has X more audio capacity than DVI.
Relatively speaking, HDMI has (X / 0) - 1 times more audio capacity than DVI. X / 0 is undefined. It is not infinite.
It's all about Northbridge support (Score:2)
What I hope Intel does is create a high-quality set of specs and hand it to IEEE in the form of a high-quality Reque
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What alternatives?
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... has native security problems ....
Would not surprise me at all if this had (again) no security against intruders in it, just as FireWire. Of course security against evil copyright terrorists will be present...
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"only" since about 2006... the AMD FX64 processors were the first IIRC.
A Nuclear power plant on your legs (Score:3)
As a result Thunderbolt will also support USB 3.1 (which is currently spec'd at 10Gbps) and can optionally provide up to 100W of power (in compliance with the USB Power Delivery spec) to charge devices via USB-C (like the recently introduced 12-inch Apple MacBook).
I read 100W an I felt the hair singe off my legs.
I think the key word is "optionally". I doubt very many laptops will be able supply that much power for charging.
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USB Power Delivery spec.
If you have a dingus that plugs into the mains on one end and has USB-C on the other, then it has to conform to certain standards. If it has USB-C and connected to a battery, I'm pretty sure it doesn't need to supply 100W.
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a 28AWG wire (nominal diameter you'd find on a motherboard jackplate) would melt if you pumped 100W through it. There's a REASON the USB spec says 1500mA, and that is PRECISELY because the wire is rated for it!
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There are existing USB chargers that push up to 12W over a single wire, 2.4A x 5V. USB 3.1 pushes 100W over a pair of wires, 2.5A x 20V x 2. The current is nearly the same, and USB 'charging' cables already have larger power conductors, up to 20AWG.
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...oh, and if it's the jack/plug you're worried about, there are four power and four ground pins in the type-C port; at 20v that's a reasonable 1250mA per pin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... [wikipedia.org]
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The cost of implementing all of the power management for the optional 100W facilities will be non-trivial. Substantially more than barrel jack expecting a voltage a bit higher than the laptop's battery voltage. Posh laptops may support what you suggest but I doubt it will be a universal feature.
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Really? You already have a USB chipset onboard that is designed to negotiate the power being delivered *by* the laptop, how much more difficult will it be to also negotiate the power being delivered *to* it? I'd bet very little - and in exchange the user gets the confidence of knowing their laptop can charge from any standard 100W USB-C charger. The greater opposition I suspect would be laptop manufacturers not wanting to give up their juicy replacement cable business. And frankly, aside from a certain w
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Umm, what? Spam's irrelevant to the conversation, and USB charges at a predefined voltage, so there's no "electrical firehose", just a standard-"pressure" hose that you must negotiate power-rights with before drawing more than the minimum power guaranteed by the specs.
I couldn't find details about the 20V charging mode, so I suppose if it's a negotiated thing rather than a separate set of power pins, then there's some chance that a cheap no-name USB "high power" charger might deliver 20V constantly, likely
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The cost of implementing all of the power management for the optional 100W facilities will be non-trivial. Substantially more than barrel jack expecting a voltage a bit higher than the laptop's battery voltage. Posh laptops may support what you suggest but I doubt it will be a universal feature.
I'm confused, are you meaning that creating the power supply would be difficult or the internals of the laptop would be difficult? Because both of those exist already (granted, not necessarily at 100W), as evidence [google.com] by a few [apple.com] different [google.com] products [apple.com]. It took a while for USB 3 to come to budget oriented devices as well.
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I have a feeling that the typical ATX power cable is a much lower gauge than each wire in a USB cable. Or are USB 3.1 cables going to be thicker?
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The USB 3.0 cable in front of me is thinner (including outer insulation) than a single wire on a 4-pin molex connector in my desktop.
Molex is a company, not a connector (Score:2)
The USB 3.0 cable in front of me is thinner (including outer insulation) than a single wire on a 4-pin molex connector in my desktop.
Those so called "molex connectors" are actually made by several companies. Molex is a company, not a type of connector though Molex is one of the companies that makes the ones you are referencing. TE Connectivity for example sells an effectively identical connector in their Mate-N-Lok line. People know what you mean but I actually run a company that makes wire harnesses and if you came to me and said "molex connector", I would stare blankly at you until you clarified which of the thousands of different ty
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Did you have a point? Or did you just want to point out that Molex is a company and the 4-pin molex connector (that doesn't even have a specific name for generic versions) is not the same thing as Molex the company?
One port to rule them all... (Score:3)
Finally. Someone as Intel figured that pushing both types of connector that they invented is not such a smart thing.
One port to rule them all. One place to find them
One cable to bring them in and in Thunderbolt bind them
Now let those who bought those $50 Thunderbolt cable cry about bloody murder.
Re:One port to rule them all... (Score:5, Interesting)
And for most users, that one cable is going to be a bog-standard USB 3.1 passive cable, that can still be used for 20Gbps Thunderbolt, as well as USB 3.1 and DisplayPort. This is going to be massive news for consumer docks.
If you absolutely need more than 2GB/s for your attached RAID/GPU then you will need an active Thunderbolt cable to reach 40Gbps.
I'm sure this use case was part of the USB Type C plan.
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If you absolutely need more than 2GB/s for your attached RAID/GPU then you will need an active Thunderbolt cable to reach 40Gbps.
No, if you want to use an external GPU or an external, high-speed disk [array], then you use external PCIe cables and bypass the thunderbolt layer bullshit entirely.
My old external PCIe cables are rated for PCIe 2.0, but even that (64 Gbps after overhead) is more than Thunderbolt 3's theoretical max of 40 Gbps.
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Actually, it is not clear whether this does work at all with a regular USB-C cable. At least 40Gbps needs special active Thunderbolt cables, which I guess will not work as USB cables. For 20Gbps, the article is unclear. Talk about the worst design choice possible....
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One port to rule them all. One place to find them
One cable to bring them in and be left wondering why nothing is working
FTFY. Look, I like the idea of a single cable and port standard. But there should also be a single protocol. At least you'll have USB3 to fall back on, but I imagine many sales drones and users getting confused on the finer points of compatibility issues.
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From the article:
There will be two types of Thunderbolt 3 cables supported at launch: passive and active. Passive cables forgo DisplayPort 1.2 support, don’t require special internal circuity to operate, and only support transfer speeds of 20Gbps. Active cables, on the other hand, are DisplayPort 1.2 compliant and will support the full 40Gbps.
So yes, it sounds like you'll be able to use cheap passive cables, provided you don't need more than 20Gbps or Displayport support. Which would b the vast majority of use cases.
Where is my high speed LAN? (Score:5, Interesting)
Where is my Thunderbolt high speed LAN network connection? 10G Ethernet is prohibitively expensive, this has 40GB built in. Why can't I use 10G or so of that to network?!
Re:Where is my high speed LAN? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about other operating systems, but If you connect two or more Macs together with Thunderbolt, you get a virtual ethernet interface (just like you did with FireWire).
Great if you have two Macs with fast storage, but for everything else, I'm waiting for a 10GbE Thunderbolt adapters [sonnettech.com] to come down in price.
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Well, you can use it already for point-to-point connections. I think the problem with doing it on a LAN would be developing hubs/switches/routers that support it.
Re:Where is my high speed LAN? (Score:4, Informative)
Where is my Thunderbolt high speed LAN network connection? 10G Ethernet is prohibitively expensive, this has 40GB built in. Why can't I use 10G or so of that to network?!
Because three meters (maximum length for Thunderbolt over copper) is kind of short for a network? Apparently you can get optical extenders that will do 30 meters but that doesn't sound like a way to save money.
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And you still need a switch. Those are still the current bottleneck on 10gbe. I can get a decent Intel branded 10gbe card for $150. But then when you go to buy a 12 port switch there is only one viable option today that doesn't cost $20,000 and it's not viewed very well.
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You can. This new spec has 10GigE networking built into the specification.
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Because then you wouldn't have a reason to buy new cables when the next version is released.
Re:Where is my high speed LAN? (Score:4, Informative)
Where is my Thunderbolt high speed LAN network connection? 10G Ethernet is prohibitively expensive, this has 40GB built in. Why can't I use 10G or so of that to network?!
It's been a thing for a while, just connect two compatible systems with any old Thunderbolt cable.
Macs got it with 10.9 in October '13: http://www.macworld.com/articl... [macworld.com]
Windows apparently got a driver from Intel to support it in April '14: http://www.engadget.com/2014/0... [engadget.com]
I can find a bunch of questions about it on Linux but haven't found anything conclusive about support. It doesn't look like there's been much work at the moment, likely because Thunderbolt systems are few and far between aside from Macs.
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Just to be clear for the interested (and the haters), I mean real LAN networking not point-to-point between two computers. I'll spring for the switch ($800 Netgear). I only need one switch. Each 10GB NIC costs more than most of my computers.
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No, just goes to show how greedy and self destructive the 10gbe patent holders are. My understand is that the only the holding back 10gb is the licensing expense.
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https://www.google.com/shoppin... [google.com]
That $800 netgear 10G switch has one 10G port and eight 1G ports, sorry to rain on your parade.
Just why is 10G ethernet still so expensive? (Score:2)
Previous speed bumps in Ethernet always had a price premium, but it didn't last that long and the high speed quickly became bog standard on anything. Sure, there was/is still a quality factor involved (gak, RealTek) but for the most part everything worked pretty well and was at least faster than the previous speed even if limitations kept it from being capable of sustained wire speed.
10G Ethernet has been commercially available now for what seems like a long time, yet pretty much anything that can do it ST
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Nah, same reason why 100baseT was around so long; it was good enough.
gig-e is more than adequate for almost anything that involves a desktop computer, so there's nothing driving prices down. Eventually, it won't be, and prices will drop like a rock.
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You seem to be unaware that 10GbE has completely different length specifications than Thunderbolt as it is aimed at a different task.
Re:Where is my high speed LAN? (Score:4, Informative)
Are you running a corporate lan off the (10g) segment?
if not why the F*ck do u need 10g @ home??
At home, my desktop PC, my Mac Mini, my MBPr, and my NAS all have storage devices that are 3x-10x the speed of 1GbE.
I regularly push around dozens to hundreds of GB at a time.
This isn't anything fancy, just standard consumer equipment I'm running. 1GbE is the limiting factor in any transfer.
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VNC/remote desktop running at 4k resolution and 60 Hz refresh rate?
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Uncompressed 1080p at 30fps video can go as high as 1.6Gbps, if memory serves. So, double that for 60fps and then quadruple that if you want to do 4K, and, as you pointed out (though most remote desktop products do compression, as I recall), it becomes pretty easy to imagine cases where people doing live video capture over a network may have needs that go beyond 10Gbps.
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uh... video editing?
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FTFY
Annoying (Score:2)
Coopting an existing port makes things worse, because now in addition to knowing what ports a device has, you have to know what protocols it supports over those ports. I dread having to constantly explain to non computer savvy people that, yes that connector is a USB connector and your computer has USB ports, but that is a thunderbolt device and your computer doesn't support thunderbolt. It is enough to make he wish that thunderbolt remains a niche technology that doesn't gain mainstream use.
Re:Annoying (Score:4, Interesting)
I dread having to constantly explain to non computer savvy people that, yes that connector is a USB connector and your computer has USB ports, but that is a thunderbolt device and your computer doesn't support thunderbolt.
And I look forward to getting a bunch of stuff at yard sales and flea markets that "doesn't work" for basically free.
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What, when the polyfuses on their motherboard flip and they don't get to use their USB ports for a while? I have yet to have smoke come out of anything I brought home except when I deserved it, putting way too much power into some speakers once.
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Sounds like if the computer doesn't support Thunderbolt, the Thunderbolt device will just connect as a USB device and work at USB speeds.
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That seems unlikely. Thunderbolt is a memory mapped interface with bus master DMA, USB isn't. So it's easy to put USB behind thunderbolt but very difficult to put thunderbolt (or PCIe) behind USB.
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Indeed. And from the article I take that at least 40Gbps needs special cables in addition. Not sure about 20Gbps TB, the article is not clear on that.
The absolute worst design you can have is different, incompatible cables with the same connector. That will confuse not only ordinary users.
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Oh man, it's worse than that [anandtech.com]. There are three options:
* 20gbps passive copper cable, USB-C connector, up to 2m long, supports Thunderbolt, USB3.1, and DisplayPort
* 40gbps active copper cable, USB-C connector, up to 2m long, supports Thunderbolt, USB3.1
* 40gbps active optical cable, USB-C connector?, up to 60m long, protocols not yet announced
Notice that you can't use DisplayPort on the 40gbps active cable. So in addition to having ports that look identical but support different functionality, you have cable
Somehow they forgot: Special cables required. (Score:2)
Seriously, what use is having UBS-C connectors work, but normal USB-C cables not, or at least they only deliver 20Gbps (the article is not clear on that, it may be that no USB-C cable works...).
Ugh! Stop overloading connectors! (Score:2)
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The new Macbook has USB-C as does the Chromebook Pixel 2, expect the next wave of ultrabooks and convertibles to have them as well.
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When will I be able to get a USB-C power slot for my laptop?
Three months ago. [wikipedia.org]
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Unfortunately, it's the same connector that *finally* promises to solve most of the mechanical issues that have plagued the first three generations of USB ports.
On the plus side, it sounds like falling back to USB 3 may be the default behaviour if either device isn't thunderbolt compatible. Which would be nice, much like the current "fall back to USB2 if both devices (and the cable) don't support USB 3".
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There is nothing stopping you from plugging in an external display to any Apple laptop, past or present. The 13" MacBook that you appear to be alluding to supports 4K external monitors.
NOT exclusive to Apple. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Perhaps they were using the Mac fans to field-test the standard as they optimized the chipset for this new generation with broader, largely transparent, appeal?
All bus devices will have security issues. (Score:2)
Of course if we stopped allowing high speed / low latency devices to connect.... then more security could be added
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Not that you badly need it, but technically there are now consumer SSDs with about 2GB/s of real performance. So, these are rich man's toys but you could transfer 100GB of crap out of a laptop without planning for the transfer time. Or add a 10Gbe NIC to a laptop, and that's about it without going to weird PCIe/PCI enclosures you can't find anyway. Well, in truth Apple sells a small 1GBe NIC for cheap enough, that must be the most common use of Thunderbolt.