Sony Set to Support Thunderbolt - Company

From X-bit Labs: Sony Corp., a leading supplier of consumer electronics, said it would support Intel Corp.'s Thunderbolt interconnection. The technology will allow Sony to sell products with ultra-fast interconnection.

"[New] Hybrid PC [features] Intel’s Light Peak technology which is what we know now as Thunderbolt, that same interface that current MacBooks Pro are sporting," claims a listing on a Sony's owned web-site.

Previously known as Light Peak, Thunderbolt technology supports two low-latency communications protocols - PCI Express for data transfer and DisplayPort for displays. Thunderbolt technology works on data streams in both directions, at the same time, so users get the benefit of full bandwidth in both directions, over a single cable. With the two independent channels, a full 10Gb/s of bandwidth can be provided for the first device in the chain of the devices. All Thunderbolt technology devices share a common Mini DisplayPort connector. Intel's Thunderbolt controllers interconnect a PC and other devices, transmitting and receiving packetized traffic for both PCIe and DisplayPort protocols and thus makers need to develop or use additional controllers to make their products compatible with the TB I/O interface.

Not a lot of devices these days can take advantage of Thunderbolt. Only external graphics cards, external solid-state drives as well as RAID-based storage solutions, professional equipment and some other applications need 10Gb/s demand.

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