Intel is definitely not giving up on Thunderbolt despite strong competition from USB 3.0 as well as the upcoming 10Gb/s USB 3.1. VR-Zone.com managed to get some slides detailing Intel's Broadwell Thunderbolt-LP controller that should show up sometime next year, with the official announcement most likely scheduled for CES in January 2014.

The Intel Broadwell Thunderbolt-LP controller is quite similar to previous ones as it provides 20Gb/s of transfer via two 10Gb/s channels, has support for DisplayPort 1.2 via graphics card and uses PCI-Express 2.0 x2 interface to connect to the rest of the system. According to the specification list, the chip comes in a 8x8mm package, has 1mW to 1.5W TDP and delivers power of up to 53W over standard tethered cable which is enough to power a HDD dock with up to six 3.5-inch HDDs, or even a smaller monitor.

The biggest gain over USB 3.0 is definitely ad-hoc networking, which allows it to set up peer-to-peer 20Gb/s connection between two PCs. While this is way behind current Ethernet capabilities, it does have its purpose in some scenarios.

As noted, Intel has prepared some Thunderbolt related announcements for Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, scheduled to open its doors on January 5th next year.





Source: VR-Zone.com, via Techpowerup.com.