20-07-2012, 04:32 PM
SEMINAR ON LIGHT PEAK TECHNOLOGY
[attachment=28237]
ABSTRACT
Light Peak is Intel's code-name for a new high-speed optical cable technology designed
to connect electronic devices to each other in a peripheral bus. Light Peak delivers high
bandwidth starting at 10Gb/s with the potential ability to scale to 100Gb/s over the next
decade.At 10Gb/s, you could transfer a full-length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds.
It is intended as a single universal replacement for current buses such as SCSI, SATA,
USB, FireWire, PCI Express and HDMI. In comparison to these buses, Light Peak is much
faster, longer ranged, smaller, and more flexible in terms of protocol support. Light Peak also has
the ability to run multiple protocols simultaneously over a single cable, enabling the technology
to connect devices such as peripherals, displays, disk drives, docking stations, and more.
Light peak was developed by Intel and brought to market with technical collaboration
from Apple Inc. In late February 2011, Apple introduced its Mac Book Pro laptop computers
with light peak technology and announced its commercial name as Thunderbolt. It can be added
to existing products with relative ease.
INTRODUCTION
The present era is the era of connectivity. Think of any sort of information, and it can be
transferred to us within question of a little time; be it audio information, video information or
any other form of data.
Now talking about transferring data between our computer and the other peripherals, the
first and foremost standard comes to our mind is Universal Serial Bus (USB). It is a medium
speed serial data addressable bus system which carry large amount of data to a relatively short
distance (up to 5m).The present version USB 3.0 promises to provide theoretical speed of up to
5Gbps.
But Intel has unveiled a new interoperable standard called LIGHT PEAK which can
transfer data between computers and the peripherals at the speed of 10Gbps in both the directions
with maximum range of 100m (much higher than USB or any other standard) and has potential
to scale its speed high up to 100Gbps in near future.
LIGHT PEAK TECHNOLOGY
Optical networking technologies have been over the last two decades reshaping the entire
telecom infrastructure networks around the world and as network bandwidth requirements
increase, optical communication and networking technologies have been moving from their
telecom origin into the enterprise and Light Peak is one of its successful outcome.
It is basically a new high-speed optical cable technology designed to connect electronic
devices to each other .It also support multiple protocols simultaneously with the bidirectional
speed of about 10Gbps (can scale up to about 100Gbps). In comparison to other bus standards
like SATA and HDMI, it is much faster, smaller, longer ranged, and more flexible in terms of
protocol support.
Thus it basically provides a standard low cost high bandwidth optical-based interconnect, it
supports multiple existing I/O protocols and smooth transition between them, it supports wide
range of devices (handhelds, PCs, workstations etc.) ,connect to many devices with the same
cable, or to combo devices, have smaller connectors and longer (up to 100m on single cable),
thinner and economical.
Light peak consist of a controller chip and optical module that would be included in
platform to support this technology. The optical module performs the task of conversion of
electricity to light conversion and vice versa, using miniature lasers and photo detectors. This
transceiver can send two channels of information over an optical cable, necessary, since pc needs
at least two ports. The controller chip provides protocol switching to support multiple protocols
over single cable.
TODAYS CHALLENGES
In the coming future, people would be using more and more electrical devices such as HD
devices, MIDs and many more and user experience would depend on the huge volume of data
capturing, transfer, storage, and reconstruction. But existing electrical cable technology is
approaching the practical limit for higher bandwidth and longer distance, due to the signal
degradation caused by electro-magnetic interference (EMI) and signal integrity issues. Higher
bandwidth can be achieved by sending the signals down with more wires, but apparently this
approach increases cost, power and difficulty of PCB layout, which explains why serial links
such as SATA, SAS, and USB are becoming the mainstream. However optical communications
do not create EMI by using photonics rather than electrons, thus allowing higher bandwidth and
longer distances. Besides, optical technology also allows for small form factors and longer,
thinner cables.
DATA TRANSFER SPEED COMPARISION
How does Light Peak compare to the latest technologies? The slowest is wireless. HDMI
version 1.3 and higher will transfer at 10.2 Gbps, while Display Port can go up to 10.8 Gbps.
These are slightly better than Light Peak, but they are mostly designed for video. No one is
pushing the data transfer rates of these protocols.
[attachment=28237]
ABSTRACT
Light Peak is Intel's code-name for a new high-speed optical cable technology designed
to connect electronic devices to each other in a peripheral bus. Light Peak delivers high
bandwidth starting at 10Gb/s with the potential ability to scale to 100Gb/s over the next
decade.At 10Gb/s, you could transfer a full-length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds.
It is intended as a single universal replacement for current buses such as SCSI, SATA,
USB, FireWire, PCI Express and HDMI. In comparison to these buses, Light Peak is much
faster, longer ranged, smaller, and more flexible in terms of protocol support. Light Peak also has
the ability to run multiple protocols simultaneously over a single cable, enabling the technology
to connect devices such as peripherals, displays, disk drives, docking stations, and more.
Light peak was developed by Intel and brought to market with technical collaboration
from Apple Inc. In late February 2011, Apple introduced its Mac Book Pro laptop computers
with light peak technology and announced its commercial name as Thunderbolt. It can be added
to existing products with relative ease.
INTRODUCTION
The present era is the era of connectivity. Think of any sort of information, and it can be
transferred to us within question of a little time; be it audio information, video information or
any other form of data.
Now talking about transferring data between our computer and the other peripherals, the
first and foremost standard comes to our mind is Universal Serial Bus (USB). It is a medium
speed serial data addressable bus system which carry large amount of data to a relatively short
distance (up to 5m).The present version USB 3.0 promises to provide theoretical speed of up to
5Gbps.
But Intel has unveiled a new interoperable standard called LIGHT PEAK which can
transfer data between computers and the peripherals at the speed of 10Gbps in both the directions
with maximum range of 100m (much higher than USB or any other standard) and has potential
to scale its speed high up to 100Gbps in near future.
LIGHT PEAK TECHNOLOGY
Optical networking technologies have been over the last two decades reshaping the entire
telecom infrastructure networks around the world and as network bandwidth requirements
increase, optical communication and networking technologies have been moving from their
telecom origin into the enterprise and Light Peak is one of its successful outcome.
It is basically a new high-speed optical cable technology designed to connect electronic
devices to each other .It also support multiple protocols simultaneously with the bidirectional
speed of about 10Gbps (can scale up to about 100Gbps). In comparison to other bus standards
like SATA and HDMI, it is much faster, smaller, longer ranged, and more flexible in terms of
protocol support.
Thus it basically provides a standard low cost high bandwidth optical-based interconnect, it
supports multiple existing I/O protocols and smooth transition between them, it supports wide
range of devices (handhelds, PCs, workstations etc.) ,connect to many devices with the same
cable, or to combo devices, have smaller connectors and longer (up to 100m on single cable),
thinner and economical.
Light peak consist of a controller chip and optical module that would be included in
platform to support this technology. The optical module performs the task of conversion of
electricity to light conversion and vice versa, using miniature lasers and photo detectors. This
transceiver can send two channels of information over an optical cable, necessary, since pc needs
at least two ports. The controller chip provides protocol switching to support multiple protocols
over single cable.
TODAYS CHALLENGES
In the coming future, people would be using more and more electrical devices such as HD
devices, MIDs and many more and user experience would depend on the huge volume of data
capturing, transfer, storage, and reconstruction. But existing electrical cable technology is
approaching the practical limit for higher bandwidth and longer distance, due to the signal
degradation caused by electro-magnetic interference (EMI) and signal integrity issues. Higher
bandwidth can be achieved by sending the signals down with more wires, but apparently this
approach increases cost, power and difficulty of PCB layout, which explains why serial links
such as SATA, SAS, and USB are becoming the mainstream. However optical communications
do not create EMI by using photonics rather than electrons, thus allowing higher bandwidth and
longer distances. Besides, optical technology also allows for small form factors and longer,
thinner cables.
DATA TRANSFER SPEED COMPARISION
How does Light Peak compare to the latest technologies? The slowest is wireless. HDMI
version 1.3 and higher will transfer at 10.2 Gbps, while Display Port can go up to 10.8 Gbps.
These are slightly better than Light Peak, but they are mostly designed for video. No one is
pushing the data transfer rates of these protocols.