Thunderbolt, the ultra-fast Intel-developed interface, will soon double in speed. Intel demoed the Falcon Ridge Thunderbolt controller Monday at NAB, the annual National Association of Broadcasters’ trade show in Las Vegas. The new design, named Thunderbolt 2, promises to double Thunderbolt’s current speeds from 10 Gbps to 20 Gbps, which equals a theoretical maximum transfer rate of 2,560 megabytes per second.
The jump in performance is necessary to accommodate the video production industry, which is quickly moving to 4K resolutions for editing and distribution. At 20 Gbps per channel, Falcon Ridge-capable Thunderbolt systems will be able to both transfer and display full resolution 4K content in real time.
High-end consumers will also see benefits, with RAID arrays of fast SSDs already getting close to the 10 Gbps limit of current Thunderbolt implementations. A move to 20 Gbps will give demanding workflows the headroom to grow as SSD speeds continue to increase.
Intel also took the time Monday to reveal more about Redwood Ridge, the minor Thunderbolt update that will arrive before Falcon Ridge. Redwood Ridge brings support for DisplayPort 1.2, enabling 4K resolution output along with small improvements in power consumption. It also introduces the changes necessary to be compatible with Intel’s upcoming Haswell microarchitecture, slated for release this summer.
Redwood Ridge will be released soon in two configurations: DSL4510 and DSL4410, sporting 4 channels/2 ports and 2 channels/1 port, respectively. These new controllers will likely be included in Apple’s next line of MacBooks, which are due to be updated at or around the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June. The few PC component makers which thus far support Thunderbolt will also quickly move to implement the new controller as systems switch to the Haswell platform.
The more exciting Falcon Ridge will go into limited production by the end of 2013 and ramp up to broad availability throughout the first half of 2014. There are few details on what new features the controller will bring aside from the bandwidth increase, or how it will fit into Intel’s release schedule for Broadwell, the 14nm microarchitecture set to follow Haswell.
