USB SuperSpeed will relegate Thunderbolt to a niche

The USB SuperSpeed specification and accompanying hardware are about to undergo a number of major evolutionary makeovers that will leave little room for the Thunderbolt hardware interface to expand in the market.

Both USB SuperSpeed and Thunderbolt have recently undergone version upgrades – USB moved to v3.1 (SuperSpeed+) and Thunderbolt to v2. And both upgrades double the maximum throughput speed — USB 3.1 to 10Gbps and Thunderbolt 2 to 20Gbps.

But, the USB SuperSpeed specification has a lot of elasticity built into it.

“This tech will scale well beyond 10Gbps,” said Rahman Ismail, a USB 3.0 senior architect at Intel. “We believe we already have a protocol that will scale well past 40Gbps.”

Other than speed, Thunderbolt 2 has another advantage over USB 3.1 – 10 watts of power compared with USB SuperSpeed’s 4.5 watts.

But, the USB connector specification is also getting long-awaited improvements that will give users a reversible plug orientation and the opportunity for a more robust cable offering up to 100 watts of power. Again, like Thunderbolt, the new USB Type-C Connector means both the cable and the connector plug are symmetrical and the technology will eventually offer 10 times the power of Thunderbolt 2.

The new USB Type-C Connector specification is expected to be completed in July. A more robust version of the cables, capable of supporting 100 watts of power, are expected later next year.