Corning gains Intel approval for all-optical Thunderbolt cables
At the Intel Developer Forum on Wednesday, Corning announced that its Thunderbolt Optical Cables are the first completely optical fiber products to receive Intel's certification.
The news comes more than half a year after Corning first debuted the "Thunderbolt Optical Cables" at CES 2013 in January alongside a USB standard solution dubbed "USB 3.Optical Cables."
Corning's all-optical Thunderbolt cables use the company's ClearCurve VSDN optical fiber technology to deliver high data speeds over longer distances than traditional copper cables. The optical fiber versions are also 50 percent smaller and 80 percent lighter than their copper counterparts.
?Based on Intel?s Thunderbolt protocol, Corning is providing a fast, innovative cabling solution designed for data-intensive connectivity,? said Bernhard Deutsch, vice president of Product Line Management, Optical Connectivity Solutions at Corning. ?Thunderbolt Optical Cables by Corning empower users to quickly access and move data between devices at distances copper cables cannot.?
Corning plans to make the cables available at various lengths starting at 10 meters, though final product specifications have yet to be revealed.
A release date has yet to be nailed down for the Thunderbolt Optical Cables, though Corning sees the product rolling out to distributors, resellers and online shops in the "coming months." Those interested can keep track of retail status through the company's website.
The news comes more than half a year after Corning first debuted the "Thunderbolt Optical Cables" at CES 2013 in January alongside a USB standard solution dubbed "USB 3.Optical Cables."
Corning's all-optical Thunderbolt cables use the company's ClearCurve VSDN optical fiber technology to deliver high data speeds over longer distances than traditional copper cables. The optical fiber versions are also 50 percent smaller and 80 percent lighter than their copper counterparts.
?Based on Intel?s Thunderbolt protocol, Corning is providing a fast, innovative cabling solution designed for data-intensive connectivity,? said Bernhard Deutsch, vice president of Product Line Management, Optical Connectivity Solutions at Corning. ?Thunderbolt Optical Cables by Corning empower users to quickly access and move data between devices at distances copper cables cannot.?
Corning plans to make the cables available at various lengths starting at 10 meters, though final product specifications have yet to be revealed.
A release date has yet to be nailed down for the Thunderbolt Optical Cables, though Corning sees the product rolling out to distributors, resellers and online shops in the "coming months." Those interested can keep track of retail status through the company's website.
Comments
Can anyone tell me how flexible/robust optical fiber is compared to CAT-5, USB or HDMI? I've only ever dealt with copper cables in my travels. From the looks of the picture, it appears it's able to bend pretty decently. How well does it deal with kinks?
Normal fiber optics are not robust at all to bending. The "usual" Corning SMF-28e is specified for a max bend diameter of 32 mm. ClearCurve is a special fiber designed to be able to be tolerant of bends, it's specified to a bend radius of 1.5 mm.
Fiber is usually very tolerant to pulling and smashing, unless you get to the connectors.
Sounds like every single new technology ever made, then.
Normal fiber optics are not robust at all to bending. The "usual" Corning SMF-28e is specified for a max bend diameter of 32 mm. ClearCurve is a special fiber designed to be able to be tolerant of bends, it's specified to a bend radius of 1.5 mm.
Fiber is usually very tolerant to pulling and smashing, unless you get to the connectors.
Thanks for the info - I appreciate it!
I don't think anyone asked for better cables.
(but I appreciate the hard work these fine engineers do)
Thanks for the info - I appreciate it!
And when he talks about intolerant to bending he doesn't necessarily mean breaking the fiber. It's about signal attenuation. Bending a normal fiber optic cable past a certain radius causes the laser light level to attenuate. In the telecom industry we were taught to limit bends to the diameter of a soda can. A few years before I retired we started using "bend insensitive" fiber cables that supposedly did not attenuate when bent too far. In a transmission school I attended many years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the instructor set up a demonstration with a light source at one end of a fiber cable and an optical meter at the other end. Then he started to bend the cable and you could see the light level dropping as the radius got tighter and tighter. Some of the light actually escapes the fiber at the bend (which is how you tap into a fiber optic cable without interrupting the signal and I'm sure the NSA knows all about this.) We actually had a tool to detect live traffic on a fiber by bending it in the tool slightly. We could even tell which direction the light was traveling (transmit or receive). Something about internal refraction. Anywho, I don't expect these Thunderbolt cables to be that long or to get bent enough to cause problems.
The fiber is well protected and a kink would probably only effect the outer sheath maintaining the integrity of the fiber.
Fiber was actually tap proof at first. The FBI mandated the telecoms to devise a way to tap it.
many people, or at least i, have been waiting for longer cables since TB release
So what? Those who need it will find a way to afford it.
Yes, for now but there will come a time where copper will be much more expensive.
After all, you can't make copper out of sand.
The cables were being crimped and smashed like crazy and performed without a flaw. A big part of this Breakthrough for Corning is their assertion that this particular type of fiber they've developed is incredibly robust, and nearly impervious to pinches and crimps.
The display model was pinched off the way you would kink a hose to cut the flow of water, and wedged into a tiny hole in a plexiglass board to hold it that way while it kept on doing its thing.
No issues.
A major benefit is the ability to put noisy gear far from your work area, which, for us audio/video people, is a fantastic benefit. Also, it will allow long runs like at a concert hall from the FOH to the stage with no audible latency, while eliminating the need for multiple lines or snakes.
You could, in fact, run a thuhnderbolt monitor off it with a mouse and keyboard while having the mac on another floor in a closet. It opens up a lot of possibilities, and i expect them to be pricey.
They hate nails driven through them though! LOL. My company installed a pretty large fiber optic network at an auction house back in the early 1980's for an Apple ][ network (a Symbfile system). We had a hell of a time trouble shooting an intermittent failure. Finally found the carpet man had nicked one with his carpet tacks.
Maybe, but since I don't expect them to be used unless the added performance is critical, the price difference won't matter much. They're not going to be replacing existing cables with optical (especially since existing devices don't have optical Thunderbolt ports).
I assume that the Mac Pro will have optical TB ports, but haven't seen anything about that yet.
ETA:
I guess I was wrong. Existing TB devices will accept the optical cable:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/240618/apple_mac_thunderbolt_ports_will_support_optical_cables.html
Maybe, but since I don't expect them to be used unless the added performance is critical, the price difference won't matter much. They're not going to be replacing existing cables with optical (especially since existing devices don't have optical Thunderbolt ports).
I assume that the Mac Pro will have optical TB ports, but haven't seen anything about that yet.
ETA:
I guess I was wrong. Existing TB devices will accept the optical cable:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/240618/apple_mac_thunderbolt_ports_will_support_optical_cables.html
All these **optical** Thunderbolt (and optical USB 3) cables do the "optical stuff" in the cables' connector plughead itself, hence rather than the copper ones which are 25mm in connector length, these optical connectors are actually a bit longer at 35mm in length, instead.
Some key facts:
• What's great, is because it's the *cable* itself (in the connector) that contains the optical processing, virtually all Tbolt 1 (10Gbps) & 2 (20Gbps) devices new and old can use them! (Tbolt 2 just channel-bonds two of the fours lanes together in each direction, one reason why they're forward-compatible with the newer faster standard.)
• ...provided they are self-powered devices though, as only the shorter copper cables can provide power to some smaller low-power devices.
• Corning's Optical Cables™ are coming in lengths of 3.5m/5.5m/10m/30m/50m/100m (aka 12ft/18ft/33ft/100ft/165ft/330ft).
(incidentally, their optical USB 3 ones will only be up to 50m/165ft in length).
• Pricing per-metre is around the same as the copper ones, which is really not too bad a deal. For example B&H NYC quoted me $240 for the 10 metre Tbolt Corning cable (so $24 per-metre) — not too bad a price IMO (certainly perfectly acceptable pricing to pro's and prosumers needing such a length.) As you can then usually just use cheaper shorter cables to daisy-chain to the first device that has the long connection.
• Given they're made out of glass and not copper, they're about half the weight and 35% thinner than copper ones. This is another great point, as storing, carrying, and maneuvering into place is really easy.
• If choosing between Tbolt and USB 3 for new peripherals, Tbolt is a better transport offering much lower latency — certainly important for pro usage like video editing, but prosumers should aim to use Tbolt too, as it will give a better experience with virtually zero lag on almost all activities when accessing Tbolt peripherals. The USB 3 will be useful for certain access point reasons, for devices users need USB for.
• Additionally, Tbolt can join PC-to-PC (Mac-to-Mac), as well as host-to-peripheral (whatever it is: storage, monitor, or anything else) using the same connector at each end. Whereas USB 3 generally uses different connectors at each end (e.g. type-A goes to type-B) with/without additionally using a great deal of differing connector sizes (e.g. miniUSB, microUSB, male-to-female, etc.), meaning Tbolt cables have more versatility in what one can use them for as the same Tbolt connector fits in all components.
US sales start Oct.2013 (available now!), but unbelievably for some reason UK/EU sales won't start until JULY.2014 (!) — very annoying delay for us lot (gee, thanks Corning!). I'm guessing this may be down to constrained manufacture and thus low supplies.
Corning sales/distribution info page: http://www.corning.com/CableSystems/OpticalCablesbyCorning/where-to-buy/default.aspx
AFAIK, who else makes optical Thunderbolt cables?
• Germany brand DeLock are also making some optical Thunderbolt cables (in 10/20/30m lengths). Llittle info found on them though, apart from here: http://www.delock.com/produkte/G_83257/merkmale.html?setLanguage=en !
• Japanese company Sumitomo have previously over the last 6-12 months now had optical Thunderbolt cables (in 10/20/30m lengths) but in limited supply and only sold in Japan (though recently, I found them on Amazon.de too, as Sumitomo's only non-Far East office is in Germany: http://www.amazon.de/gp/aag/main?ie=UTF8&asin=&isAmazonFulfilled=1&isCBA=&marketplaceID=A1PA6795UKMFR9&orderID=&seller=A1UJ6LRYW8TWYC ). Though initially at very VERY high prices, they've reduced recently, but still higher than Corning's (see here: http://global-sei.com/ewp/E/thunderbolt – e.g. Amazon.jp has their 10m at around ¥47,250/US$500/€400/£300), and both these companies only offer up to 30m length compared to Corning offering up to 100m.
This is all I have managed to find out, as all info on these optical Thunderbolt cables seems to be under-wraps, and extremely difficult to come-by. Literally zero mainstream sales info is out there generally, for inexplicable reasons; you really have to hunt the info out, it's like they all want to keep them secret or something &/or have shite marketing/pr departments!? They certainly don't sell them to users very well, that's for sure.
Hope this helps someone anyway.