Intel's Light Peak optical links could arrive in 2010

In September, Intel showed off Light Peak as if it were the latest hot idea out of the labs. But the fiber-optic communication technology could well be coming to a computer near you next year, rather than in some distant sci-fi future.

A Taiwanese optical networking company, Foci Fiber Optic Communication, is well along the path of selling Light Peak cables and other fiber-optic components.

"We plan to have our pilot run ready by the end of November 2009, and ready to be in mass production in the beginning of year 2010," said Janpu Hou, the company's vice president of business development.

Foci is not some no-name manufacturer of commodity gear, either. The company supplied the optical networking components used in the Light Peak demonstrations at the Intel Developer Forum in September.

It may look like a regular USB cable, but this Foci Fiber Optic Communication cable is for Intel's Light Peak technology.

(Credit: Foci Fiber Optic Communication )

Light Peak technology is designed to be a universal connector for computers and other devices, linking not just what USB does today but also monitors and networks. A chip from Intel juggles among the different types of data being sent over the line, ensuring for example that high-priority traffic such as high-definition video gets priority.

If Intel succeeds in spreading the technology widely, it could replace a profusion of incompatible connectors--Universal Serial Bus, FireWire, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, and Ethernet, for example--on computers and many other devices. And Intel confirmed Wednesday it's trying to standardize Light Peak through USB Implementers Forum.

"Intel is looking forward to working with the industry and bodies such as the USB-IF to make this a standard," said Intel spokesman Nick Knupffer. "It's going to take a couple years."

A 2010 time frame isn't a total surprise. Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner said components for Light Peak would be ready that year, even if he didn't promise any delivery of Intel's chip or computers using Light Peak.

But there's the sticky bit when it comes to timing. If Light Peak arrives in 2010 but a USB standard takes a year after that, early adopters won't necessarily be guaranteed that the Light Peak technology in their machines will work with any Light Peak-based USB standard of the future.

And companies making phones, music players, monitors, cameras, and other devices no doubt would prefer to support an industry-standard incarnation of Light Peak rather than its pre-USB rough draft. Even making a special-purpose early Light Peak device--say, a docking station or hub that provided ports for video, USB, and Ethernet and linked to a laptop via Light Peak--would be an expensive undertaking.

Intel has allies to further its cause, though. Sony explicitly endorsed Light Peak, and one Intel Developer Forum Light Peak demonstration used a machine running Apple's Mac OS X. Apple is a company that exerts strong control over its image, and Intel is a company that chooses its demonstration technology carefully, so bet that Apple is a supporter.

Fiber optics for the masses
Foci's cables use USB connectors, though not actual USB cables, Hou said.

Foci Fiber Optic Communication also supplies this internal fiber-optic line that links Intel's Light Peak data-routing chip to the Light Peak port into which people will plug cables.

(Credit: Foci Fiber Optic Communication)

One concern with Light Peak is how well optical fibers will hold up to the rigors of the consumer market. Optical networking thus far has been the purview of long-haul networks and exotic data centers, not teenagers carrying grungy backpacks.

Hou, though, said the Light Peak cables will be flexible and strong.

They can be bent into a loop just over an inch in diameter with no problem, he said, and using them repeatedly isn't an issue.

"The cables are quite durable, and can be connected and disconnected for at least 7,000 times," he said.

He was less specific about price, though. "We are trying to bring down the cost to an acceptance level by consumers," he said.

One way to bring down costs is to use plastic fiber, but Foci found that approach produced "poor results," Hou said. "Currently we use bend-insensitive glass fiber with special treatment."

Foci isn't the only company expertise in optical communications working on Light Peak. Among Intel's Light Peak partners are Foxconn, Foxlink, Avago, SAE, Iptronics, Corning, Elaser, and Ensphere, Intel said.

And indeed, SAE Magnetics, a subsidiary of TDK, announced Wednesday it has built early versions of optical modules that can support two Light Peak ports.

From Nobel Prize to the consumer
Fiber optics have been around for more than 40 years. Charles Kao's seminal work with the idea in 1966 led to his award of the 2009 Nobel Prize for physics.

The technology since then has spread more widely, notably these days in fiber-to-the-home Internet, telephony, and television service from Verizon, AT&T, and others. But most people don't directly experience fiber optics themselves by touch even if today's Net would be impossible without it.

One big challenge has been cost. Given the engineering hurdles involved, fiber optic communications have generally been cost-effective mostly where network traffic is very high.

Computers are trending that direction, though. High-definition video demands tremendous data-transfer capacity at high resolutions, and 3D video doubles that demand. People synchronize music and video players with dozens of gigabytes of storage space--and don't enjoy waiting for the process to complete. And people must copy ever larger photo and video files from cameras to computers.

Light Peak is designed to address the challenge. Its initial data-transfer speed is 10 gigabits per second each direction at the same time, but Intel believes that limit can be increased by a factor of 10 in the next 10 years.

Also, like USB today, Light Peak will accommodate electrical wiring so that it can supply power to devices.

One outstanding question is whether Light Peak will rely on having a computer at the center of its universe, which USB does but FireWire does not.

"Something like this comes along only every so often," said Peter Glaskowsky, an analyst at the Envisioneering Group (and a member of the CNET blog network). "There's only that one chance to make it really useful across a wider variety of industries than just the PC industry. I hope Intel does that this time."

[fgfgVCV]

"Also, like USB today, Light Peak will accommodate electrical wiring so that it can supply power to devices. "

How does fiber convey power? So standard electrical wiring can use the Light Peak standard as well?

[mudphud]

The cable has optical and wired components. Devices attached to it can use the wired part, they don't have to be optical. The idea is to need only one port and cable to cover a lot of devices.

[ngngokkiu]

I think it means besides fiber, there is also additional wiring to carry electricity?

[Shankland]

Yes, to be clear, Intel expects copper wiring to carry current alongside the fiber optic lines for data. If they do in fact just add an optical element to USB (version 3.0 of which explicitly accommodates the addition of optical lines), USB of course already has the ability to carry some current. It increased in USB 3 and the USB-IF also added a separate USB specification for even more current for charging batteries of devices attached to USB.

[GEO2003]

10 YEARS AGO
It is unfortunately that I am not in this type of industry.
I saw one of the Intel processors in display at a Museum in NJ, close to it was Fiber Optic cables and how they function.
So I said to myself - why don't they connect everything inside a computer with Fiber Optics.

Now I see this and if INTEL AND AMD are reading this, take this approach to the next level. I may not understand much about mechanics but if Verizon can send signals via Fiber Optics and convert them into a signal inside the house that is transmitted through Coaxial cable ot CAT 5 if that is how your home is wired. There most be a way to have the CPU coverts all it does into light signals which in turn can be transmitted to each componenet which inturn would convert it back to readable instructions.

I am imagining here, having the entire motherboard using Light signals, Convertions would take place as needed to be process, or the components say a PCI video card would have its own processor to convet the light signals.

There was mention that using plastic fiber optics would be more cost efficient and better because they are flexible. In my ideal scenario, the motherboard would a bit thicker, think of indented channels to accomodate the fiber optic wires going to all the components.

I am sure I amy be missing a lot here but given that lights travels faster then the lithography connections on the motherbard it woudl increase performance beyond what we know today. Even avoiding electrostatic interference.

Can you imagine the performance on multi-server settings. I can.
Just dreaming. But some day some one willl try it out.

GO EXPERIMENT INTEL AND AMD AND NVIDIA.

Geo

[dbloyd]

Too bad it took this long to have one standard cable. It took years for Serial and Parallel ports to be dropped. The transition for this takes forever.

[LordFupa]

i really hope this hits the floor running i would like to have access to those kind of hot pluggable data transfers

[tylrwnzl]

So how is this supposed to differentiate whats coming into the computer. For example if this is supposed to carry everything from Video to Sound, will there be separate labeled ports with the same connector on the motherboard? Or does Intel have some way of you just plugging all the cables into a USB port and it can say okay this is the monitor, keyboard, audio, etc. I know it can differentiate now between (for example) an ipod and a flash drive, but how will that work on initial setup, wouldn't Windows, Apple, and all the Unix OS to rewrite their setup files for a completely different driver package setup because it would be looking for the monitor in a VGA (or HDMI) port?

[beeeners1012]

I may be way off base here, but i am going to try and give this one a go. Fiber optics sends tiny minuscule waves of data at hyper speeds. so from my understanding it would be able to transfer all types of signals, video audio and others alike, simply by tell the computer to do a specific thing. E.G for video, it would say make this color, or this pixel, in this order. audio: it would say to make a certain tone at a certain frequency for a certain amount of time at a certain pitch. again, this is what makes sense to me. this is basically what i learned, though i only learned minor complexities.

[luke_marsh]

I think for this level of computing there needs to be more collective research on the flow of complexity in highly paralleled compute systems. Today with choices ranging from in order large Stream processor Arrays to the possibility of out of order small scale processor array co-processing surly there is a growing software need for code to be more adaptable on any given system to make optimal use of a systems strengths over it's weaknesses especially when you consider later people may have more complex degrees of processing abilities like more in-built Quantum processors or maybe even on board FPGAs ect. In fact over this decade in the hardware world it makes sense that the software can match what ever the hardware manufactures can manage to achieve, That way the Industrial world makes the most out of the highest achievements rather than simply relying on the hope that more specific technologies will do well and others will not in a climate where many new innovations are trying to make strides forward for the comes decade of progress.

well i think its great but alittle out of place and time i mean if there waiting on computerto be there main buyer then i dnt thnk they will serive

[abhishek_mtx]

All the devices will be connected to a single port.
The devices will be connected in a Bus topology just like USB.
The current drivers for the devices will not work for light peak., will require upgrade.
They will be Hot Pluggable.
Also, just like USB, different type of Devices can be connected like IO, Storage, Networking, Video, etc.
Only diff is that Light Peak is combining different protocols together like USB, FireWire, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, Ethernet.
And since Optical technology is used,
1. It will be way faster than the current "Wired" protocols
2. The cable length limit is extended
3. There will be no EMI issue

Somebody mentioned using FO inside a PC...
Think about this,
At every stage, there will be millions of light transmitters, which convert electricity into light.
But to process the data, it has to be converted back to electricity.
Hence there will be equal amount of sensors to convert light back into electricity.
If they decide to make a prototype, it would be quite bulky and very costly.
Now it doesnt sound that simple does it?
But it would be a great idea to connect HDD and RAM using FOC.