The upgrade set for 2013 will only take things to 10 Gbps

Jul 20, 2012 13:38 GMT  ·  By

Thunderbolt has seen a decent but not remarkable level of interest and adoption on the part of IT companies, especially Apple, but this initial incarnation isn't all that close to its full potential.

Thunderbolt was envisioned as an interface that would eventually attain a transfer speed of 100 Gbps.

No one expected it to do it right off the bat though, and Intel settled just fine for 10 Gbps. After all, it's double what USB can provide.

Still, 100 Gbps is a goal that needs to be accomplished in a decade, counting forward from the moment when the first TB iteration came out.

That would involve an increase in maximum speed of 10 Gbps per year. Thus, 20 Gbps should be out roaming starting in 2013.

DigiTimes says this won't happen. Instead, the 20 Gbps threshold will only be touched in 2014 (1.5-2 years from now).

There will still be a new TB controller next year though. Called “Redwood Ridge,” it will combine the DisplayPort v1.1a and DisplayPort v1.2 Redriver, standards.

The main asset will be strengthened signals over longer stretches of cable.

Not so coincidentally, the launch is poised to take place close, timeline-wise, to that of the Intel Haswell CPU line, as well as the 8-Series of chipsets.

Known as “Shark Bay” in certain circles, the chipsets will appear in April, according to the latest reports.

It is a good thing that daisy-chaining isn't exactly a widespread habit of the Earth's populace just yet. Had people already taken to it, it would have been agonizing to wait until 2014 for that extra channel. As it is, RAID arrays, monitors and high-quality audio / video interfaces work fine alone.

All that remains is for Intel, and Thunderbolt adopters, to somehow bring the price down. The current implementation, “Cactus Ridge,” costs $20 / 16.39 Euro, hence why only high-end motherboards bother with it.