Thunderbolt still a 'niche' due to Intel licensing requirements - Page 2

Intel wholly owns the thunderbolt spec.  It is theres from inception to right now.  The collaberation that is often spoken about with apple was to get the design implemented in macs and working.  Also to rename the spec from lightpeak to Thunderbolt.  Apple filed for the name thunderbolt and then immediately turned the copy written name over to intel.  Was kind of weird that apple filed for the name and then gave it to intel.

 

Edit:  Just did a little more investigation is does seem that apple gave something to intel, for the use of the name thunderbolt, they gave them the mini display port plug  which was an apple design as the form factor for thunderbolt plugs because thunderbolt was originally designed to use the usb plug.  The usb consortium objected to there plug design being used in this way and intel used apples mdp (mini display port )  design to get around this.

 

 

By the way Apple licenses mini display port technology to anyone at no cost but it is there design.

Edited by Mechanic - 1/15/13 at 7:28pm

This could be a problem with the graphics capabilities of Thunderbolt devices.

 

Since Intel makes graphics chips, are they really going to allow third parties to produce TB controllers, allowing the likes of AMD and NVidia to produce Thunderbolt chassis that could conceivably harm Intel's graphics business?

 

If Intel has to pre-approve TB-compatible devices, doesn't this mean they would have to have advance and intimate knowledge of AMD and NVidia GPU technologies?

 

Could Thunderbolt really be a play for Intel to control the GPU business?

I've never read that regarding TB. Apple didn't request any royalties related to thunderbolt's use of the mini displayport connector, which is logical if they wanted to push adoption. I don't think they have ownership of any other part. USB is totally different. Its compatibility extends to prior devices. There isn't really a problem mixing generations of technology there without the use of adapters or things like FW800 --- > 400 cables.

 

I tell people not to buy Lacie. Their support is terrible. They're about packaging and branding. They sell displays as an ODM where other brands have always offered a better cost to performance ratio in the same markets. External drives don't always carry excellent margins, but you can find some okay options. With LaCie you buy into something non- interchangeable with cheap parts. I remember many dead firewire bridgeports. In terms of thunderbolt, Intel wants it to be like usb in a lot of ways. One example would be that certification requires that devices can be hot plugged. Sonnet had something about that on their site.

 

 

 

I'd guess the issue is cost + certification requirements and development costs + the number of thunderbolt equipped machines out in the wild. If notebook use continues to increase at the high end for heavy workloads, you could see more thunderbolt development. A lot of consumers are served well enough by usb3. USB is in everything, so it's a safe bet. If the cost was similar to develop things like external drives for usb3 and thunderbolt just like we had usb + firewire + eSATA, that would help a lot.

I just had a browse through RED and Sony professional HD video cameras and not found anything with USB3 yet. Can you provide a link to the 'all' you refer to? I like to keep up with trends like this. Thanks.

This could happen with Broadwell (2014, just after Haswell). Intel is going to be integrating the Platform Controller Hub into the CPU to make what they call an SoC:

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/26786-intel-migrates-to-desktop-multi-chip-module-mcm-with-14nm-broadwell

You can see this chip on the following page in step 22 in orange:

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2544+Teardown/11936/3

You can see how the PCH connects to the TB controller here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thunderbolt-performance-z77a-gd80,3205.html

While that doesn't force people to adopt Thunderbolt, soldering the CPU to the motherboard might:

http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/11/30/socketless.move.sees.intel.merge.processors.with.motherboard/

There's a rumour suggesting they want to lock out dedicated graphics eventually. This can of course happen if they stop putting PCI slots on the motherboard. It wouldn't prevent people using dedicated GPUs but it moves them out of the machine. Broadwell will come with a 20Gbps controller on the motherboard so that might be too soon but they plan to scale TB up to 50-100Gbps and that's all you'd need.

It's all tapeless now so the connection isn't as important. Firewire works for real-time capture in that video would stream from the device to the capture device, which USB couldn't do most likely due to protocol limits and latency as well as sustained throughput. With modern cameras, it's mainly file transfer so the comparison is between FW speed and USB. FW is faster but you could just as easily take out a P2 card and plug it into a box:



Thunderbolt might help with those kind of devices although USB 3 will cover the read speed of the card and they have USB 3 readers. Firewire still allows you to do real-time capture e.g a live event, which USB can't do but there's also HDMI, HD-SDI etc. They broadcast an 8K picture recently:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/31/super-hi-vision-eyes-on/
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/130238-8k-uhdtv-how-do-you-send-a-48gbps-tv-signal-over-terrestrial-airwaves

It's only a 500Mbps stream for 8K, which should be transmittable on almost any of the connections live but it depends on the protocol, latency and sustained throughput. Firewire certainly isn't needed going forward as Thunderbolt and USB 3 offer fast file transfers and HDMI, HD-SDI and Thunderbolt offer low latency sustained live transfers. Latency would be an issue if you capture the sound separate from the live video because latency in the video capture will put it out of sync.

I'm not aware of USB 3 on any camera yet, but I can't keep up either. That I can tell, Red Scarlet and Epic doesn't have Firewire either for that matter. They offer streaming via HD-SDI, file system access via GigE. One of my Sonys offers HDV through Firewire (this degrades quality), direct file system access via USB 2, direct stream access via HD-SDI. I have another Sony that's a model down that doesn't even offer Firewire, but does USB 2 and HD-SDI. I don't think HD-SDI can offer deck control, which is what DV/HDV (Firewire) offered, but the quality is downgraded on any camera with a higher bitrate or more advanced CODEC.

Intel commented on that some time ago saying they wouldn't move everything to BGA. This would remain even more true at the Xeon EP level, where replacing a cpu and motherboard together could be extremely expensive. In that first part they aren't talking about Xeons, just mainstream (LGA1155 type) cpus. PCI slots on the motherboard aren't really intel's function anyway. They could publish reference boards without them, but the PCI lanes themselves originate in the cpu package. Perhaps if intel absorbed the majority of the motherboard, there would be less resistance to this. As it is now, they're worried it would drive costs up.

 

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/intel_says_company_committed_sockets2012