USB 3.0 cables go optic
The company Corning has good ideas on how to fix the USB 3.0 speeds that are quite dependent on the quality of used cables. In reality if you expect higher speed your USB 3.0 cable has to be a thick, clumsy one. Even then if the cable is longer the speed goes down quickly, but there is a solution – use optic cables.
To reach (or at least get close) to the maximal USB 3.0 speed of 5GBi/s (625MB/s) – which is quite a speed bump from USB 2.0 and their 480MBi/s (60MB/s) – the signal clarity has to be exceptional. Even bulky double
shielded cables with gold plated connectors are slowing the speeds down considerably do to their length.
For example – replacing a uselessly short 30cm cable with 1.8m one results in a 10% speed drop from UHS-I card reader.
Corning comes with solutions to these problems, their optical USB v3.0 connectors have built-in optical converters and the cable itself is optical line, it is light, can be bent easily,does not require big shielding and most importantly – it does not degrade the transfer speeds. Making possible to reach the maximum 5GBi/s, when the connected devices can deliver such speed in at least short bursts.
Officially this thing is called USB 3.0 Optical Cable. What’s most important is that they are offering very long lengths, and these will not degrade the speed – 10, 15 and even 30 meters cables, USB 2.0 compatible. The asking price for the shortest 10m one is $129, which is about twice the cost of USB 3.0 10m cable. Now let’s just hope that they also made shorter versions in around 2m lengths that could be used for connecting hi-speed devices lying near our PCs.
http://www.corning.com/opcomm/
