Speed has become more important to tech users these days, especially when it comes to transferring data. So, with the intention of bringing high data transfer speed to everyone, Intel and USB Promoter Group decided to announce something called USB4.
USB4’s specifications are made based on the Thunderbolt protocol which Intel made royalty-free. According to the company, the combination of Thunderbolt and USB protocols will benefit users in terms of their device connections, and the new USB4 will be able to perform much better as it’ll have twice the bandwidth of USB 3.2.
According to USB Promoter Group, USB4 will be using a two-lane operation that can support transfer speed up to 40Gbps, have various data and display protocols for increased efficiency in terms of bandwidth sharing over the bus.
That aside, it is worth noting that USB4 will still be backward compatible with USB 3.2, USB 2.0 and also Thunderbolt 3. Intel also mentioned that the company is working with Microsoft to allow built-in support for Thunderbolt 3 in Windows 10 and will equip future Intel CPUs with Thunderbolt 3, starting from its 10nm processor code-named “Ice Lake”.