Intel Demos First Light Peak Laptop
Intel Demos First Light Peak Laptop
Intel Demos First Light Peak Laptop
Intel demos for the first time a real-world laptop running Light Peak, their high-speed optical cable technology that can transmit data starting at 10 Gbit/s.
Intel's chief technology officer, Justin Rattner, claimed that the bandwidth afforded by the optical technology is practically unlimited. "Light Peak begins at 10Gbits/sec, simultaneously in both directions," he said. "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 - fibres can carry trillions of bits per second".
This is the second time that Light Peak has seen the light of day since it was demoed a year ago at the 2009 Intel Developer Forum. Light Peak is supposed to support everything from storage to displays to networking, so in effect, a Light Peak cable and port could do everything your present cables and ports do, and you’d only need one - if manufacturers adopt the standard.
While USB transfer speeds are much slower (USB 2.0 has a transfer speed of up to a high of 480 Mbit/s, and USB 3.0 up to 4.8 Gbit/s), the first USB 3.0 products have already appeared in the market and it seems that "Light Peak hardware should start to become available to manufacturers by the end of this year" only.