Light Peak Revealed

Light Peak is a new fiber optic technology for interconnecting peripherals to personal computers and portable devices. Apparently it was conceived by Apple and is being implemented by Intel at Apple’s behest. It sounds like an Apple idea to me (simple, elegant, wish I would have thought of that first), and expect to first see this fiber networking technology integrated into Apple’s products.

Light Peak is elegant in its simplicity, and with PC peripheral interconnects, simplicity is a definite virtue. The situation today is far from optimal, with a variety of different technologies in use including various versions of USB and Firewire. Light Peak has the potential to be a universal technology for networking PC peripherals, though its use of fiber optic cable will bring some challenges.

Intel already has early 10 Gbps Light Peak modules and is predicting 2010 for its first production shipments. Intel is anticipating eventual 100 Gbps versions. The picture below (click to enlarge; from Intel) shows a multi 10G fiber Light Peak module mounted on a PCB with four different interfaces.

What does this have to do with broadband? Well, broadband rates follow behind home Ethernet networking rates, which follow behind the PC peripheral rates. So I guess you could say Light Peak is future broadband’s distant relative. As Light Peak drives up the rates for PC peripheral interconnects, local networking bandwidth should increase with Gigabit Ethernet becoming even more popular. And with Gigabit Ethernet, rates delivered with fiber broadband technologies like Passive Optical Network (PON) can be fully utilized.

Even today, GPON Optical Network Terminals (ONTs) are capable of delivering broadband rates of up to 1 Gbps to residential subscribers. But, subscribers who cannot take advantage of these rates will not be very interested in paying more for this level of broadband bandwidth.

Engadget broke the news and has three articles on Light Peak.  Scroll down to see the articles.

CNET has a good comprehensive article on Light Peak.

And Intel has several pages on their website devoted to Light Peak.

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