At this week’s Intel Developer’s Forum in San Francisco, Intel demonstrated a new high-speed optical cable technology, expected to be ready by next year, that can be used to connect mainstream electronic devices such as laptops, HD displays, cameras, video players, iPods, docking stations and solid-state drives (SSDs) to each other using optical fiber rather than copper wires.
The Intel developed “Light Peak” cable delivers 10 Gbps of bandwidth, with the potential ability to scale to 100 Gbps over the next decade. At 10 Gbps, a user could transfer a full-length Blu-ray movie in less than 30 seconds.
Some interesting facts about Light Peak: the optical module is only12mm by 12mm and drives two optical ports using VCSELs (Vertical Cavity, Surface Emitting Laser). Intel believes the module can be produced at 1/30th the cost of traditional telecom modules. Light Peak also has the ability to run multiple protocols simultaneously over a single cable.
Intel said it will work with the industry o determine the best way to make this new technology a broadly available standard.
http://www.intel.com
