Apple Adopting Light Peak for 2011 Macs

The new MacBook Pros are due on Thursday according to pervasive Internet scuttlebutt, and at the very least, a jump to Intel’s new Sandy Bridge architecture is a sure thing… but another state-of-the-art Intel technology might be coming to them as well, with Mactrast reporting that the February 24th MBP refresh might include the adoption of Intel’s Light Peak technology.

Light Peak is Intel’s next-generation, high-speed connection technology that unites in the same copper SCSI, SATA, eSATA USB, DisplayPort, FireWire and PCI Express. One connector to rule them all. The adoption of LightPeak would not only a giant speed bump for Mac users — throughput is close to 10Gbps, or three times faster than USB3 and about 12.5x faster than Firewire 800 — but would vastly simplify the internal layout of Macs… a consolidating move very much in keeping with Apple’s design ethos (in and of itself, no surprise, given the fact that Intel developed Light Peak upon Apple’s prodding).

MacTrast’s report follows a report by CNet saying that Apple would soon unveil a new high-speed connection technology for use in Macs that would be based upon Light Peak, although not branded as such.

As for USB 3.0, don’t expect it in the new MacBook Pros. Intel is not due to ship a chipset with USB 3.0 integrated until 2012, and Steve Jobs went on record last year saying that Apple did not see “USB 3 taking off.” That sounds like a man betting on Light Peak.

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