Sumitomo Electric Industries has begun mass producing optical Thunderbolt cables. Sumitomo is the first company that last month received a certificate from Intel for optical Thunderbolt cables, which allows the transmission of data over longer distances than the standard ones with a copper wire can deliver.
Optical Thunderbolt cables can be up to 30 meters (standard is up to 3 meters), while the integration of optical interconnects into the connector of the same length increases from 28 to 38 millimeters. Data transfer rate stays at the existing 10 Gb/s per channel (total bandwidth of 20 Gb/s), and Sumitomo highlights the high durability and bending abilities of optical Thunderbolt cables up to angles of 180 degrees or even tying them in a knot.
While standard Thunderbolt cables with copper wire can transmit 10W power beside data for connected devices, optical are not able to do so and can only function as a data cable, so users will have to make compromises between the length of the cable and this extra feature. The company has not yet announced pricing and delivery time for their optical Thunderbolt cables.
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