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The DisplayPort 2.1 specs had been formally released by VESA on Monday, and this was adopted up by USB-IF’s announcement of the discharge of the 80 Gbps USB4 v2 specifications yesterday. These have have delivered to fore the numerous engineering efforts put into making a unified protocol able to dealing with the exterior I/O bandwidth necessities of tomorrow’s computing programs. At present, Intel is saying the demonstration of early prototypes for next-generation Thunderbolt primarily based on the USB4 v2 and DisplayPort 2.1 specs.
Intel’s donation of the Thunderbolt 3 specs to the USB promoters group to type the idea of USB4 has had its share of execs and cons. On one hand, the convergence of the Kind-C connector ecosystem theoretically achieved the objective of minimizing end-user confusion, and the royalty-free spec for PCIe tunneling opened up the market to different silicon distributors like ASMedia. Nevertheless, it additionally created shopper angst as many of the engaging options of USB4 (such because the 40Gbps bandwidth and compatibility with PCIe tunneling) had been completely optionally available options. That mentioned, it did allow Intel to market Thunderbolt ports because the Kind-C that would do all of it. Intel’s demonstration of Subsequent Era Thunderbolt additionally included a sneak peek into its specs, although sure elements are but to be finalized. Earlier than delving deeper into Intel’s press launch, a fast recap of the 80 Gbps USB4 v2 specs announcement is important.
USB4 v2 Updates
USB4 v2 builds upon the multi-protocol tunneling structure launched in USB4 by doubling the out there bandwidth whereas sustaining the identical port / pins format and cable construction. This has been achieved by transferring the bodily layer sign encoding to PAM3 (described intimately in our coverage of 80 Gbps ‘Thunderbolt 5’ final yr). Which means present 40Gbps USB4 cables will have the ability to help 80Gbps operation additionally.
The USB4 v2 specs now enable tunneling of DisplayPort 2.1 alerts and as much as 4 PCIe 4.0 lanes. The information and show protocol updates additionally make it extra environment friendly, with USB knowledge tunneling able to exceeding 20 Gbps.
One of many key updates within the transfer to help DisplayPort 2.1 tunneling pertains to the utmost whole bandwidth for 4 lanes in UHBR 20 transmission mode. This interprets to 80 Gbps, primarily leaving nothing spare on the transmit aspect for every other protocol. To deal with this, USB4 v2 introduces the idea of uneven hyperlinks. Normally, a USB4 hyperlink makes use of two bonded high-speed differential signaling pairs to transmit and obtain knowledge, permitting for 40 Gbps duplex operation (40 Gbps transmit and 40 Gbps obtain) within the symmetric case. Nevertheless, the lane initialization course of can optionally configure the hyperlink to have 3 transmitters and one receiver on one aspect, and three receivers and one transmitter on the opposite. Mixed with the upper knowledge charges due to PAM3, this may enable the host to ship out 120 Gbps, whereas decreasing the obtain bandwidth to 40 Gbps. Excessive-resolution shows may be reliably pushed with out an excessive amount of of a sacrifice of the bandwidth out there on the transmit aspect for different functions (like high-speed storage).
The ability supply specs have additionally been up to date to match the updates made in USB4 v2, and new emblem pointers have been issued for consumer-facing gear.
Subsequent-Era Thunderbolt
Thunderbolt has seen unbelievable momentum during the last couple of years – triggered primarily by the mixing of Thunderbolt controllers contained in the high-volume pocket book processors beginning with Ice Lake. The mix of information, video, and energy supply in a single port / cable makes it useful to a number of use-cases. Specifically, the growing recognition of hybrid work / hot-desking (displays / networking and many others. behind a dock, permitting a number of workers to simply plug of their Thunderbolt-equipped programs at totally different occasions) has additionally served as a fillip to Thunderbolt adoption within the enterprise / workplace house. Players and content material creators have an unbelievable thirst for I/O bandwidth that’s served properly by Thunderbolt.
As talked about earlier, Subsequent Era Thunderbolt takes the USB4 v2 specs as baseline and makes all the engaging optionally available options into necessary ones. On prime of this, Intel’s integration of Thunderbolt into the pocket book processors ensures that the implementation is energy environment friendly on the host aspect. Making Thunderbolt necessary for Intel Evo and vPro notebooks additional cements Intel’s management within the USB4 v2 house.
The dynamic bandwidth rebalancing characteristic permitting tunneling of the very best bandwidth DisplayPort 2.1 streams whereas nonetheless permitting utilization of high-bandwidth peripherals is without doubt one of the most enjoyable options of USB4 v2 that’s positive to be out there in programs outfitted with the Subsequent Era Thunderbolt ports.
Intel’s demonstration included each host and system implementations, with the host configuration proven to start with. A discrete GPU’s DisplayPort output is fed into the host controller board, and two Kind-C cables fork off, one ostensibly to the show, and one other to a dock (system) with a SSD connected.
Facets corresponding to energy supply limits (Thunderbolt 3 / 4 help as much as 15W by default) for the Subsequent-Era Thunderbolt ports will probably be clarified within the close to future. Intel didn’t present any data associated to market availability.
Primarily based on a look via the USB4 v2 specs and Intel’s description of Subsequent-Era Thunderbolt, it’s clear that Thunderbolt ports will proceed to stay the Kind-C port that does all of it.
