Not surprisingly, the Thunderbolt cable is not your average cable. It’s an active cable with 12 chips and “tons” of resistors. Together these electronic components regulate the high-speed transfer of data from Thunderbolt device to computer. Yeah, it may not cost $55 to build, but this is Apple we are talking about. [iSuppli]
Matt L
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 11:52 AMI don’t understand why they couldn’t put these circuits inside the port on the actual device. I’m sure that would be cheaper and more logical as you only have to make it ONCE per device, not once per cable. This is how Apple work. It looks like a bodge job anyway, the appearance I’d expect from a TEAC circuit.
Uncle Bob
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 12:31 PMThe advantage of having it in the cable and not the device means that like USB 2 vs Firewire, you are not putting a drain on the system with each additional device that is plugged in.
The cable does the work, not the device, leaving the devices & computer to work at their optimum.
IAmBillGates
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 12:36 PMI guess you then face the problem of needing to invest $55 for each cable, makes keeping a draw full of spare cables an expensive proposition.
olearymo
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 4:01 PMBy that logic, why not have the chip inside the port? It’s still not using ‘system resources’.
Matt L
Friday, July 1, 2011 at 2:52 PMWell… As an electronics technician who will likely be repairing these products. I can safely say it’s pretty simple to have the port detect if something is plugged into it so the port can then switch the circuit on, then it can draw the 0.04mw of “system resources” or whatever it needs to get it doing it’s job… Putting it in the cable is clearly a means to make you pay twice for the same technology. The first time buying a unit which has this port, and the second time buying the cable…. If the need is really there to use more then one of these cables on one device, then they should have an active version of the cable. Most people are only going to use one product with this, if any, so they could of had an active port with a passive cable, then an passive port with an active cable for each additional port… I swear I’d be a shit engineer, simply because I’m not the type of guy who can con someone into spending, spending, spending.
Ian
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 1:05 PMActually, @Matt L, it’s Intel at work. Thunderbolt is an Intel technology (known as LightPeak). Apple I believe has simply licensed it and branded it Thunderbolt.
Much in the same way as FireWire.
Martin
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 1:23 PMActually Apple haven’t renamed anything, Light Peak was it’s code name, Thunderbolt is the final product name, it’s a collaboration between Intel and Apple however any vendor that wants to use it has to pay royalties to Intel to use it… I’m calling a massive flop on this one!
Franz
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 7:37 PMIntel have their foot in USB 3.0 and LightPeak (I reject thunderbolt), I’m guessing they are trying to stall USB 3.0 and help LightPeak take the market.
Daniel
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 1:13 PMYou’re paying for it somewhere, whether it’s in the equipment, or on the cable. Easier to replace a cable.
olearymo
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 4:05 PMPaying for it in the chassis, you pay once. Pay for it in the cable… what if you need more than one cable, or it’s damaged, or you lose it…
Richard
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 9:31 PMAs someone mentioned below its to allow for different cable standards. Up until last year light peak was going to use optical cables which would have allowed for even faster transfers I believe but the costs was prohibitive. Instead they went with what we have now but with circuitry in the cable so that in the future you will be able to make use of better transmission standards without needing to replace the entire device/port.
For instance, this cable works over wire but you could also have another cable that works via optical. Both cables will work on the same port.
Its arguably more expensive to have the electronics in the cable since you tend to have several times the number of cables than you will have ports that you frequently use. The offshoot is those costs will drop with time and the technology is far more scalable.
It’ll be interesting to compare the technology and whether it improves over its life compared to USB 3.
Nodeity
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 1:40 PMHeh heh, don’t own anything Apple, so,… don’t care.. :)
olearymo
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 4:06 PMNo offence nodeity, but, if you don’t care…? ;)
Nodeity
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 5:43 PMHmm,.. Can’t help myself, there’s no way in hell I’d pay that much for a cable that transfers data, no matter how fast it is! But I guarantee fanboys will buy it, just so they can show off to other fanboys… Seriously,.. $55.00 for a cable… Mwa ha ha ha
olearymo
Friday, July 1, 2011 at 8:47 AMYeah I’m personally not getting it either. If you have a really special reason for the speed, maybe… but the rest of us will just sit back and wait for it to become a universal standard. Will be a lot easier for us :)
Jonestown survivor
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 1:43 PMIt’s wicked fast – that’s all that matters
ozoneocean
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 2:16 PMWell there’s not just the equipment remember. They have to recoup on licensing (no way they’d own all the tech in there), R&D, and labour etc… With the actual parts they’d get massive volume discounts anyway.
Mark
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 2:52 PMUSB cables and HDMI cables cost a fortune when they first came out as well!
Awnshegh
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 3:00 PMWhile USB3 is only now starting to find traction I can’t see this getting anywhere once poeple find they have to fork out $55 for the cable no matter how good it is.
Do we get $55 off the product we’re plugging it into because the chips are in the cable? I don’t think so.
Nope this one will either be re-designed and re-released or it will end up on the trash heap within a few years and with no one even noticing I’ll bet.
ozoneocean
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 3:50 PMI don’t think that’s how Apple typically works- they tend to FORCE things to be a “success” by removing all other options ;)
I can picture future devices ONLY having thunderbolt ports and nothing else- no usb, no display, or HDMI etc. Maybe on all future devices.
-There will most likely be adapters available to your older USB things won’t be obsolete.
Awnshegh
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 4:01 PMYou’re probably right – If they do though they can expect their sales to go down and their complaints to go up if the cable isn’t included with the product.
Mike
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 3:26 PMLol and that makes it worth $55? bullshit. I’ll guarantee you this can be made for under $5 at the bulk levels they’re being produced at. It’s amazing how much prices go down when you order in bulk from the actual manufacturer.
Brendan
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 4:22 PMUm – there’s actually 2 very good reason the electronics are in the cable.
The data transfer speeds of this cable are huge, to the point where the noise associated with the cable length becomes important to successful data transfer. Therefore, the novel solution we see here is actually an active system specifically tuned to the qualities of the cable. Therefore, a 2m cable requires different processing to a 1m or (later) a 3m cable. We will see much more of this kind of implementation (active cables) going forward.
The second reason is that they use “active cables” is to allow for an optical interconnect solution as well – using the same connectors. The optical receivers and tranmittors will (like the active copper solution) be installed in the cable (plug). This makes the system very flexible – and to an extent, helps with some degree of future proofing.
tim
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 8:04 PMif they were to put the chips inside the socket instead of the cable then you’ll get into a situation where you ran out of ports and you need to share one port between for multiple cables through some sort of hub so now the chipset inside your socket will have to handle a massive amount of data from a bunch of cables.
alcomposer
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 7:05 PMActually am I the only one that would prefer the computer to let me know that the cable is ‘not working’ other than losing half of your data!
The chips in the cable would obviously have to handshake with the computer- thus if there is ‘any’ issue it will be rejected. I have had too many FW cables die on me without any reason, (and still ‘sometimes’ work).