Unintentionally, an Intel executive may have leaked information about Thunderbolt 5, the next generation hardware interface protocol. This has yet to be officially announced by Intel.These details were revealed in a tweet photo by Gregory Bryant (EVP and GM Intel's Client Computing Group), which was taken Sunday while Bryant was documenting his visit at Intel's R&D laboratories in Israel.AnandTech explains that the photo was taken during a Thunderbolt-related tour and showed a poster with the words "80G Phy Technology" on it. This suggests that TB5 connectivity can support up to 80GB/s throughput or double the bandwidth of the existing Thunderbolt 4 (and USB 4) connections.The poster also contains the phrase "USB 80G was targeted to support existing USB-C ecosystem", indicating that Intel plans to use the additional bandwidth through the same USB connector.The poster also refers to a new PAM-3 implementation (Pulse Amplitude Moderation) that uses a 3-bit data signal. This would allow TB5 to attain a higher bandwidth than the standard non-return to-zero (NRZ), and PAM-4 implementations found in existing connectivity protocols.Thunderbolt 4 was launched by Intel last year. Although a number of TB4 accessories are available, Apple's new iPad Pro and Mac Pro models only support Thunderbolt 3. TB4 is more powerful and useful, but it does not offer any bandwidth increase above the Thunderbolt 3 maximum of 40 Gb/s. This makes the upgrade to Thunderbolt 5 possible.These innovations can have a practical result, such as TB5 supporting faster refresh rates for 4K or 8K monitors and backward compatibility for older Thunderbolt or USB connections.It is not clear if Intel Thunderbolt 5 would be launched or supported by future Apple devices. However, the accidental leak gives us a glimpse into the direction Intel might take with the interface protocol.
