Thunderbolt 5

Thunderbolt 5 had a low-key launch, but it will be key tech for Apple products

- Cliff Joseph

YOU WILL LEARN
How the forthcoming Thunderbolt 5 offers improved performance and features

Key fact
Thunderbolt and USB cables now look almost identical, as they both use the same USB-C connector. However, Thunderbolt 4 introduced a new logo, showing the zig-zag Thunderbolt symbol with the number '4' beneath it, so that you could tell the difference between Thunderbolt and USB devices. Thunderbolt 5 will have a similar logo, with the Thunderbolt logo and the number '5'.

The timing of Intel’s announcement of Thunderbolt 5 was surely no coincidence – 12 September, the same day that Apple launched the new iPhone 15, and finally brought USB-C to the iPhone range as well. There’s an irony there, though, as Intel’s announcement was obviously overshadowed by Apple’s iPhone extravaganza, even though it’s always been Apple that championed the use of the Thunderbolt interface technology, long before it was adopted by the manufacturers of Windows PCs.

But, believe it or not, it was actually Intel that developed Thunderbolt in the first place – although it was originally called Light Peak when it was first introduced by Intel in 2009. Light Peak was initially intended to run on fibre-optic cables, but Intel found that it was also possible to run a version of the Light Peak tech on less expensive copper cables. This provided transfer speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second (Gbps), which was much faster than the USB 2.0 interfaces that were in use at that time, which only ran at around 480Mbps.