We know that Intel’s Thunderbolt (previously known as Light Peak) is fast, like 10Gbps fast, and that’s even faster than your latest 6Gbps SATA3 HDD transfer rate. But how does it work? Well, Intel just held an event, and roughly explain to us layman.

Simply put, Thunderbolt’s a familiar-looking port (DisplayPort), a brand-new chip, and a cord, which allows devices to pipe two data streams simultaneously — in both directions — over a single cable at up to 10 gigabits per second to start. It’s actually using the PCI Express x4 lane for data and DisplayPort for video. The Thunderbolt controller chip, which is required, acts as a miniature router of sorts that rapidly switches between the two bidirectional channels of data. Of course Intel says that it’s hardware-agnostic and doesn’t require an Intel processor or chipset to use, which means AMD-based computers can also use it.

Also, Intel says that Thunderbolt will be backwards and forwards-compatible depending on the cable used. The basic system can work with any other PCI Express 2.0-compatible I/O system, like a FireWire or eSATA adapter. What’s shocking is that Intel says the new Thunderbolt port that you’ll find in the new MacBook Pros and storage devices can actually take an optical cable when those are cheap to manufacture in mass, because Intel will eventually bake the optical transceivers into the cables themselves.

Thunderbolt will be able to supply 10 watts of power over the bus, and will work in the range of 3 meters for a basic Thunderbolt cable. You may be able to get another three meters for each device you add that sport a pair of the ports.

SOURCE via Engadget