Intel officially released its high-speed transmission technology Thunderbolt in April. Already motherboard makers and vendors have adopted the technology into their high-end products. The technology is expected to become one of the key specifications that motherboard makers will be competing with in the second half of 2012, according to sources from motherboard players.
Thunderbolt supports PCI Express and DisplayPort allowing a Thunderbolt port to transmit both data and multimedia content. However, compared to USB 3.0, the Thunderbolt's higher costs are expected to limit its future growth.
Since Thunderbolt chips are offered solely by Intel with quotes of about US$20-25, non-Intel chipmakers are unable to make much profit from the technology as most can only develop products such as adapter chips for Thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt to become key specification for motherboards in 2H12
Photo: Monica Chen, Digitimes file photo




