I’m constantly asked: "Will Thunderbolt replace USB 3.0?"

Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 will co-exist & live long, fruitful lives

As reported previously, Apple filed and recieved a patent for a new iPhone or iPad connector which looks  like a Thunderbolt connection. You can see in the picture that it includes connections for USB 3.0 and dual port Displayport.

Apple received the patent in April 2011.  Since it takes at least 3 years to get a patent, we can guess that Apple has known since at least 2008 (probably 2007), it would support USB 3.0.

Apple may or may not have had knowledge of Thunderbolt in 2007.  I can see a world (in 2007) where Apple knew it would want it’s iPad tablet to drive a bigger monitor through DisplayPort.  That could be the original reason for dual DisplayPort and not Thunderbolt.  I can only guess.

Where am I going with this?

1. Apple uses the PCs chips found in most PCs
2. Most PCs will move to Ivy Bridge
3. Ivy Bridge will be found in most PCs
4. Future Apple PCs will likely use Ivy Bridge
5. Ivy Bridge has USB 3.0
6. It’s highly likely Apple will support USB 3.0
7. Apple patents indicate they’ve planned all along to support USB 3.0

So if you are still with me, Apple will definitely support USB 3.0

Back to the question

Will Thunderbolt overtake USB 3.0?

Pros:

1. Faster than USB 3.0 today
2. Proven
3. On every Apple mobile PC

Cons:

1. Closed Standard restricts the ability to integrate.
2. Only one company provides discrete chips

The one way Thunderbolt could overtake USB 3.0 is if Thunderbolt opens up as a standard.

USB 3.0 will have more than 100 design starts for SoC integration

The USB-IF has something like 4000 members. By the end of this year, there will be about 200 different USB 3.0 Design starts.  Thats lots of people innovating products around USB.

Thunderbolt is closed.  It will stay closed.  This video explains why:

So the Innovator that designed Thunderbolt makes money from customers like Apple, Acer, and Lenovo that ship Thunderbolt.  Big piles of money.  People that need/want Thunderbolt pay for Thunderbolt.

The innovator promotes USB 3.0 for mainstream ease of use.  Consumers are happy.

Thunderbolt closed.  USB open.

Everyone is happy.

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I dare you.

Apparently we’ve sold a bunch of DDR.

There was cake.

I ate 2 pieces.

This means TI developed 6 devices or chips that support Thunderbolt.  In other words, TI chips sit next to the actual Thunderbolt chips. 

Interestingly, if you look at the prices of the TI devices in the announcement you will see the following table:

The Thunderbolt chips are made by only one company, the Innovator that created Thunderbolt and USB 3.0.

You can look at list prices for Thunderbolt at the Innovator website here.

You will see 2 prices, one at about $23 and the other at $10.50.

Combined, the prices will be about $24 for what I think is a Host PC, and about $11 for a Peripheral.

If you are building a PC, the cost adder will be about $24.  This is a lot of cost adder to a $599 PC where the PC maker probably makes less than $150 on each PC.  Of course, if you are Apple you sell your PCs for $1000-$2500 or more so you can absorb the cost better.  Apple sells a $50 Thunderbolt Cable too.

   QUIZ: How long is a Thunderbolt Cable?  Answer in the Comments below (even if someone has already answered).

If you are building a Hard Drive or SSD, or maybe a monitor, and you want to add Thunderbolt, the cost adder to your BOM will be about $11.This is a lot to add to a 1 TB hard drive that sells for less than $150, so you’ll see below that Thunderbolt drives sell for much more.

Just to point out my guess for Thunderbolt pricing:  $25 (published last September 2011).***  So I was on target on the host side, but far too high on the peripheral side.

Thunderbolt End Product Pricing – Peripherals

For the moment, it turns out if you buy a Thunderbolt Drive it doesn’t come with a cable.

You buy a cable for $50.

$50

I could feed a family of four at a good Chinese restaurant in Mountain View for the price of one Thunderbolt cable. I’ve done it.  With really good vegetables and everything

Or each lunch in the Synopsys Café for 11 days (I like the pizza).

So you bought your $50 cable, now if you want to buy a Drive.  In one case you can choose between a USB 3.0 6TB WD drive ($491 at Amazon) to a Thunderbolt WD Drive ($699 at Amazon).  Personally, I think that is a pretty big price delta.

You can read a reviews at CNET on all existing Thunderbolt drives as of today where I got all this good information.

USB 3.0 costs less

Reminder: USB 3.0 Host chips were down to $1.50-2.20 per chip in volume by late summer 2011 (My awesome graph of USB 3.0 Host Chip Pricing can be seen here)

Unsubstantiated rumor:Digitimes reported in August 2011 that Renesas could drop Host Controller Chip prices to $1.20 a unit in early 2012 (links in the same blog entry (Yes click on the entry twice just so I get the extra page hit.))  I don’t know if the price drop happened. I have no data to point to.  If you have hard data you can point me to, send it.

My point is that a USB 3.0 Host is a much smaller cost adder for a PC compared to Thunderbolt. It is safe to say, for peripherals it’s also a fraction of the Thunderbolt cost.

To be clear, Thunderbolt is a great technology for high speed transfers for people who want to pay for the performance.

USB 3.0 is for the rest of us.  Thunderbolt won’t replace USB.  They will peacefully coexist in high end applications.

(Also, USB 3.0 also supplies power,  Thunderbolt doesn’t.)

3/30/12 Correction : The Thunderbolt spec allows up to 10W of power to be supplied over the cable.  This may be necessary because the Thunderbolt cable is an “active” cable with silicon inside which increases the cost of the cable.  For the drives reviewed by CNET, apparently only the Elgato Thunderbolt SSD drive is bus powered, and does not require a second power cable.

So now when your collegues ask you about Thunderbolt, you have all the info you’ll need so say, “Hey it’s good tech, but USB 3.0 is now.”

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***It’s possible the Innovator pricing was published much earlier, I just didn’t have the info. 

stupid spam bots

At IDF 2011, we saw a lot of new Thunderbolt peripherals. Mostly storage, but a few docking stations. I will post my pictures of those tomorrow.

It appears that Thunderbolt will remain a chip solution and the Innovator that created Thunderbolt will bring out cheaper chips according to Ars Technica.  Also, PC makers like ASUS and Acer may bring out Ultrabooks supporting Thunderbolt. I should point out that Ultrabooks are equivalent to MacBook Air and are more expensive than standard laptops by 50-70% or more.

This also looks to me like Thunderbolt will not be made available for SoC integration.

This means product makers can’t build their own IP (and IP providers like Synopsys can’t build it either) to bring costs down. 

This means Thunderbolt PCs and Peripherals will have an additional ~$25 (my marketing estimate) added to their selling price. This doesn’t mean a lot to people buying 30 inch Apple Cinema displays, but people buying portable hard drives tend to try to keep their purchases in the range of $100.

I truly believe that USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt complement each other. I’m going back to an blog entry I wrote in February “Thunderbolt vs. USB 3.0”

Jason Ziller leads the strategic planning and marketing behind Thunderbolt.  He also launched USB 2.0 about 13 years ago.  Ziller talked to PC Magazine.

“Ziller, who was once chairman of the USB Implementor’s Forum, said that USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt were "complementary". "We don’t see this replacing USB," he said. ‘We see it as complementary to USB
 Intel will fully support and work with that technology." See the PCMag.com article here.

(Apologies to Jason, there’s a typo in his last name in the original article in February)

Go back and look at that article on “Thunderbolt vs. USB 3.0”  and read “How about some facts about why Thunderbolt will not pass up USB 3.0?” for all the reasons why USB 3.0 will succeed now.

Thunderbolt will succeed in the near term for high end applications by users that can absorb the cost for storage devices. In the long term, docking stations and docking stations in monitors will drive mass adoption. (Pictures of current devices tomorrow).

As Windows 8 launches with USB 3.0 and the chipset makers launch with chipset support, we can be assured USB 3.0 will succeed with over 1 billion devices to be shipped in the next 2 years.

Thunderbolt and the Self Serving Marketing Guy

Yes, this is self serving, but I’m PMM of the USB 3.0 digital cores so what did you expect?

It doesn’t make me less right.

I like to be right once each month. We are already halfway through the month. So this could be it for me.

I’m now including lots of Hyperlinks back to my articles to:

1. Increase my hits, so click away,
2. Show some diligence, back up my wild claims
3. Make it easier for you to find your way back to my articles, and the original sources on the internet without repeating everything over and over and over.  Let’s face it, no one wants to hear the sound of my voice that much.

I’m really regretting looking at those entries since I’ve finding lots of typos.

Thanks to those people that send me personal e-mails on my Kindle Review Blog Entry and Donuts.

This week: Pictures of ThunderBolt, Booting from a USB Drive with Windows To Go, and new USB Standards

Despite the fact that you know me, please

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1+ Billion USB 3.0 Devices in 2 years

During the USB 3.0 session at IDF 2011, Jeff Ravencraft pointed out that in the next 2 years, over 1 billion USB 3.0 enabled products will be shipped. For a second I thought about it, and then I realized “Yes, that’s true.”

So I pulled up the InStat data from the Microsoft Blog site that shows exactly this data.  The Green Bar below is USB 3.0 shipments.

Here’s a link to my Blog entry, you can find a link to the Microsoft Blog entry ther.

My Funny, My Friends

I sent my friend the following note with a link to “My Kindle, My Donut” article as follows:

“When you get a chance, take a look at my latest blog entry:

http://synopsysoc.org/tousbornottousb/2011/09/digital-downloads-donuts-free-donuts-or-how-the-kindle-made-me-fatter/

I know you wait eagerly to read it each week.   I would like your opinion as follows:

1) Is it funny only if you know me?

2) Is it funny on its own?

3) Is it not funny.”

My Friend responded:

“I know you and I still think it’s funny”

Some needs to explain to me what this means.

Windows 8 support for USB 3.0 – Keynote Demonstration

Following up in the Microsoft Blog Announcement of Win 8 support for USB 3.0, Steven Sinofsky gave the first USB 3.0 demonstration on Windows 8.  It is a 2 hour video, so don’t watch it now.

To see the 20 second demo, here are some tips to view the video, in the lower right corner, click “Format”, then choose “Smooth Streaming”, then advance to the time slot of 1:13:05 for the on stage demonstration of USB 3.0

The demo is quick, as it should be, and easy to miss.  It’s like the expectation that USB 3.0 be quick and easy.

Microsoft demonstrates Windows 8 on range of devices including TI OMAP and Atom based tablets, so we can guess this means we will see USB 3.0 support beyond the PC. 

This is a good sign for USB 3.0

Some leaked slides on a Chinese website showing a PC Chipset with 10 USB 2.0 ports and 4 USB 3.0 ports.   Now you might ask, why only 4 USB 3.0 ports?

Isn’t USB 3.0 is faster than USB 2.0?  Yes

Isn’t USB 3.0 more power efficient per GB of data transferred?  Yes

Doesn’t USB 3.0 got to sleep faster and wake up faster for better power savings?  Yes. 

Last Week’s Question of the Week

What is the maximum theoretical read/write speed of a SATA 6 Gbps equipped SSD?
What is the fastest claimed speed?
What is the fastest benchmarked speed?

Mr. Posner wrote in:

What is the maximum theoretical read/write speed of a SATA 6 Gbps equipped SSD?

600 MB/s – Source: My brain, 6 Gb/s signaling with 8b/10b encoding

What is the fastest claimed speed?

Read 550 MB/s / write 525 MB/s – Source:http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3871/ocz_technology_vertex_3_sf_2200_solid_state_drive_preview/index1.html

What is the fastest benchmarked speed?
Read 550 MB/s / write 520 MB/s -Source:http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3871/ocz_technology_vertex_3_sf_2200_solid_state_drive_preview/index4.html(this is the ATTO test which reports raw performance)

So the maximum theoretical speed should be 80% of 6 Gbps or 4.8 Gbps.
This assumes zero latencies in the 1) PC, 2) Drive, 3) Drivers, 4) OS, 5) Peripheral firmware


At a measured read speed of 550MBytes per second this equals about 4.4Gbps.  Reading through the Tweaktown article, the fastest previous SSD  reads at 285 MBytes per second.

So the fastest memory and the fastest SSD today, in 2011, can start to take advantage of USB 3.0.  Only SSDs of the highest speed get the full throughput 10x throughput.  More importantly, mainstream SSDs (or HDDs) can still take advantage of USB 3.0 at 3x-8x USB 2.0 speeds.  As the price of the high-end SSDs come down, USB 3.0 becomes more useful.

Why ask this question now?  Doesn’t this argue against USB 3.0?

The real reason to ask is Thunderbolt.  Even if Thunderbolt can delivered sustained 10 Gbps (which probably is 8b10b encoded, so less now) then the peripherals that serve data up at 10Gbps will cost 50% or more of the cost of a laptop.  So Thunder (for now) is directed at a fairly narrow market.

USB 3.0 – Immediately useful today, Tomorrow more useful.

Today’s Question of the Week

Why would I put faster flash memory (like the SSD above) in my Smart Phone?

Will PC’s go away?

Answer in the comments below.

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The Innovator that invented USB announced at IDF Beijing today that PC chipsets in 2012 will have USB 3.0 fully-integrated.   The Innovator has been shipping a few motherboards with the NEC Host chip, but in 2012, the chips supporting the latest processors will include USB 3.0.

In the same speech the speakers says that Thunderbolt will complement USB 3.0.  I really believe that.  Most of us will use USB 3.0 first. There are 100s of USB 3.0 products available, and every phone has USB 2.0.  The cost/performance of USB 3.0 is best suited to mass adoption, leading adoption over Thunderbolt for at least a few years in products and shipments.

Just yesterday (1 day earlier), AMD announced the first certified USB 3.0 PC Chipsets.  AMD’s A75 and A70M Fusion Controller Hubs.  A PC World interview with an AMD representative indicates that hardware has already been shipped to manufacturers.

This effectively makes USB 3.0 free to the consumer in 2012.

Finally a 4-port USB 3.0 Host Chip

On Monday, TI announced certification of 2-port and 4-port USB 3.0 xHCI Hosts.  This is the first 4-port Host to be certified which is important because I can tell you that every USB port on my Desktop and Laptops have something connected.  I really need a 4-port host.  This is great for PCs, but even better for the embedded market where you really need the flexibility of 4 ports for use both inside and outside the box.  For example, while most TVs should integrate USB 2.0, manufacturers can choose to put USB 3.0 ports on their high end TVs, and integrate the USB 3.0 later.

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I highly recommend reading Rick Merritt’s article 10 things to know about Thunderbolt to understand Thunderbolt.

I recommend another article from Merritt talking about USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt.  I think Merritt’s article is correct in terms of slowing the adoption of Thunderbolt.  (His writing is also excellent).

For Apple, the use of the DisplayPort for other connectivity makes sense.

1) It keeps the small form factor of the DisplayPort

2) It bridges to other technologies, like USB 3.0

So that means your Apple Monitor will have a USB 3.0 Hub inside of it that will connect to a DisplayPort Hub. And your Monitor becomes your docking station.

There is the weird challenge from AMD in an XBIT article regarding Thunderbolt.  The article states that the bandwidth of Displayport is already saturated with Displayport data, so you can’t put more data across a Thunderbolt line.  I really don’t know because I haven’t seen any specs.

1) If the data is somehow multiplexed on the standard DisplayPort lines than this might be true.

2) If the data is on separate lines, this isn’t the case.

I also received this interested article from MCCI on Thunderbolt and security concerns.  The article says that you could basically walk up, plug something into a Thunderbolt port, and somehow grab the data.

I haven’t a clue, but I actually believe that it will be no different than any thing else. It is more likely someone will just walk up and steal your laptop or portable SSD or phone or flash drive.