Intel talks up optical cabling

Light Peak could mark the dawn of a less tangled age

Chip maker Intel is developing a high-speed optical cable technology designed to be able carry HD video, audio and data traffic on a single cable.

Codenamed Light Peak, the fibre-optic cabling is expected to be available next year and will be able to connect mainstream electronic devices such as laptops, HD displays, televisions, cameras, video players, iPods, docking stations and Solid State Drives to each other at speeds of up to 10Gbit/s.

Demonstrating the technology at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, Dadi Perlmutter, the executive vice president of the Intel Architecture Group, said he hoped Light Peak would help end the tangle of cabling he was forced to carry around with him to connect his laptop to various devices including external monitors, speakers, media players, storage devices and so on.

According to Perlmutter, Light Peak has the potential to scale to 100Gbit/s over the next decade.

Light Peak also has the ability to run multiple protocols simultaneously over a single cable, enabling the technology to connect devices such as peripherals, workstations, displays, disk drives, docking stations, and more.

Details are still sketchy at the moment, but Intel has said it is working with the industry on existing I/O standards and ways of accelerating adoption.

Light Peak components are expected to start shipping in 2010.