Intel Unveils Light Peak 10Gbps Optical Interconnect
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 23rd Sep 2009 21:12 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
Intel "USB 3.0 might be one of the big stories here at IDF, but Intel just showed off a glimpse of the future: Light Peak, an optical interconnect for mobile devices that can run as fast as 10Gbps. That's fast enough to do everything from storage to displays to networking, and it can maintain those speeds over 100-meter runs, which is pretty astounding. Intel says the idea is to drastically reduce the number of connectors on mobile devices, which should allow them to get even smaller - but the demo was on a huge Frankenrig, so don't expect to see Light Peak devices shipping any time soon."
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The1stImmortal
Member since:
2005-10-20

I know the article says

That's fast enough to do everything from storage to displays to networking
but it appears to pitch Light Peak as a peripheral interconnect.

I'm also aware that USB does have a networking spec (or at least, people have implemented networking over it). However it works poorly and is, basically, rubbish. It's also rare.

So - why on earth aren't we beginning to see a basic convergence of networking and peripheral interconnects? Why cant my mouse or keyboard talk over ethernet to the PC? Networking technology *exceeds* peripheral interconnect speeds (10Gbit Ethernet...), and it's designed to be more robust, and work over longer distances (with speed fallbacks etc), and (transparently) different physical media. Admittedly power distribution on some ethernet specs is difficult but not a show-stopper (it's something that both the peripheral world and the networking world would benefit from solving). One bus to rule them all!

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