“An Intel executive on Friday said that its Light Peak interconnect technology, designed to link PCs to devices like displays and external storage, is ready for implementation,” Agam Shah reports for IDG News Service.
“Light Peak, announced in 2009, was originally designed to use fiber optics to transmit data among systems and devices, but the initial builds will be based on copper, said David Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s Architecture Group, in an interview with IDG News Service at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas,” Shah reports. “For the majority of user needs today, copper is good, Perlmutter said. But data transmission is much faster over fiber optics, which will increasingly be used by vendors in Light Peak implementations.”
Shah reports, “It would transfer data at bandwidths starting at 10 gigabits per second over distances of up to 100 meters. But with copper wires, the speed and range of data transmission may not be as great.”
Full article here.
Copper? they just wasted everyone’s time
Then it’s not really ‘Light’ Peak, you dig?
There is a reason many copper telephone cables are being replaced with fibre optics in the UK. Copper just can’t really cope with greater and greater amounts of data. The same goes for Light Peak. It’s a good plan, but it will only work properly with fibre optic cable. Hopefully manufacturers will opt for the initially more expensive but far more future-proof option. Everyone will thank them.
Wake me when they mend this injured horse
Come on, Intel. No ‘light’ in Light Peak? Then no deal, and I hope Apple passes too, until fiber optic us viable. We don’t need yet another interim connection technology.
IF — HUGE IF — they are still supporting an absolute minimum of 10 Gbps and have an absolute minimum of 5 meters distance between nodes then copper as an interim step is OK. Anything less and this will be a worthless step.
Maybe if they get their buts into gear they will come out with the fiber version in 2012 that supports 25 Gbps and allows real 4K monitors. One can only hope.
Fiber channel connections still use both copper and fiber optic cables
Copper Peak, yes… And keep Light Peak for the next gen of fibered products.
The trouble with naysayers (so far) is that they’re missing some important points.
1) Everything has to start some where. Nothing leaps off the drawing board fully developed to its complete potential.
2) Even copper LP will be far and away faster than anything currently on the market.
3) Eventually LP will be a universal connection that will be able to replace every other connection.
Forget USB, FW (of any flavor), ESATA, Display Port, mini-DP, HDMI, mini-HDMI, … you name it.
No more plethora of ports.
Light Peak… one port to rule them all.
Can I just say how much I love seeing Ballmer’s forlorn face looking over at the column feeds on this page? Keep his sad face as a permanent part of the article page template, please!
Long live FireWire!!!
Bring back SCSI!!
leodavinci’s got it right.
The importance of lightpeak at this stage is lowering the barrier of entry. LOTS of people have invested LOTS of money in USB/Firewire/DVI etc.
You have to lower the barrier of entry so ALL those peripherals can be inexpensive enough to buy again.
The protocols and the port will be the most important elements at this stage.
Besides, there are places where fibre doesn’t work so well, like bends in walls. Copper is far more durable in those situations.
Optical cable degrades when the cable bends.
The factor almost all of you have ignored is this: cost. Right now, copper cables are relatively cheap to produce, as well as device interfaces. Optical cables remain relatively expensive, fragile, and less flexible for many applications. You have to crawl before you walk – that is all this announcement is – LightPeak is ready to crawl. Give it two years and it will be a toddler, and in five it will be running.
I’d love to see a standardized cable and connector for every device – but it’s not going to happen. LightPeak may overtake USB and other common cables and interfaces now, but as we know, the future is mobility – how many cables do you need for your iPad or iPhone? I rarely plug mine in except to charge.
Like some others have stated, I wouldn’t mind copper LP. Plus copper cabling would allow devices to be bus powered. Hopefully there will be hubs/adapters available right away for at least USB3, FW800, and Cat7 ethernet when this thing comes out.
MDN Magic Word: Future
leodavinci wins this thread.
I donno, other than for full disk backups, USB 1.1 works pretty well.
@Steve516
The fiber optic cable they are developing for Light Peak is supposed to be just as flexible as copper. I think the main reason they are keeping copper in the mix short term is for power; originally they didn’t plan on having Light Peak capable of carrying power, but then they changed their mind once they realized what a huge drawback this would be when people are used to USB carrying it, so they tried to integrate copper into the wire solely for power. My guess would be they haven’t quite got the copper + fiber combo done yet so they are kicking things off with a copper-only and fiber-only implementation.
but the initial builds will be based on copper….
So WHY is this better? What speed will it be? Guess we’ll find out soon. Great to use to burn to blu-ray.
@ Macintosher
And the Sky can be blue… what you didn’t know that?
@aa Attendee
I am so relieved to hear you finally upgraded from the parallel port.
This is soooo BS! “Light” Peak will NOT use light and it will NOT peak for years until the REAL Light Peak standard is finished.
What we’re getting in comparison is Copper Meek!
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The point is that LP promises one interface for everything. You need to have the interfaces in use before the peripherals become mainstream. Many will remember how USB was an obscure technology before Apple adopted it. Initially there were few peripherals, but soon there was an avalanche of them and now they are ubiquitous.
Just as with there was with USB, there is now a vocal mob that doesn’t understand what the implications might be, but with regard to LP, it doesn’t really matter what the cable type is ( copper / fibre, or wet string ) so long as the achieved transmission speed and range is sufficient for the job in hand.
Obviously there will be some people who need extreme speed, coupled with a range of many tens of metres. They are unlikely to be happy with the initial offerings, but for most users, copper based LP will be a very attractive first step and the move to optically based LP will be straightforward.
It’s pointless to worry about the word “light” in the name when the connection is via copper. BlueTooth isn’t really blue, ethernet doesn’t use ether and FireWire doesn’t use actual fire.
@leodavinci: Brilliant!
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Someone has invented a time machine?
@AlenAudio: “Doesn’t use ether”… funniest thing I’ve heard all week!