Intel discontinues Cactus Ridge Thunderbolt controller

Intel has cancelled the plans to develop a planned “Cactus Ridge” Thunderbolt controller. The part that has received the axe is the L3510H which has a TDP of 3.5W. This will be succeeded by the L3510L part which has a TDP of 2.8W. The obvious reason here isthat the lower power part will allow for Intel-based Ultrabooks to have better battery life: 0.7W can make a lot of difference to battery life. The L3510L is part of the L3510 series which is:

A4-channel Thunderbolt controller and it’s set to replace the original Thunderbolt controller known as Light Ridge or 82523EF/EFL which launched towards the end of 2010. The L3510 is a smaller 12x12mm chip – compared to 15x15mm for Light Ridge – and with the changes it’s also slightly more power efficient. Intel has also managed to implement additional features on-chip for Cactus Ridge, such as a DisplayPort redriver, a connection manager and a link controller which should help drive down the cost of implementing Thunderbolt as well as help to reduce the PCB space taken up by the components needed.

Samples of the new Thunderbolt ports are expected in mid April which leaves about 6 weeks of testing before Intel Ivy Bridge and Thunderbolt notebooks are due to launch in June. Intel will apparently be hosting a Thunderbolt developer lab in Taiwan later this month so partners can learn more about implementing Thunderbolt. So watch this space as there will surely be more news by the end of the month.

Source: VR-Zone