Inside Apple's Thunderbolt to Ethernet Adapter

http://www.hardmac.com/news/2012/06/21/inside-apple-s-thunderbolt-to-ethernet-adapter

by tambourine_man • 14 years ago

33 50 14 years ago

hardmac.com

pieter• 14 years ago

So how does this work? Shouldn't it have a Thunderbolt controller on there somewhere too?

potkor2• 14 years ago

Maybe the thunderbolt cable is short and well-shielded enough that they can just run plain pci express over it.

kika• 14 years ago

thunderbolt IS the PCI express bus (plus Displayport)

DrJ• 14 years ago

there is one on the other side..

gcb2• 14 years ago

So, there's no space in a mac for a ethernet port?

what's the advantage or serializing a pci-e bus into some 4 or so pins? They must be certain that ethernet port is a thing of the past.

andreasklinger• 14 years ago

Don't you think it is? I can't remember the lasttime i used an eth cable (apart of testing the network/router)

kelnos• 14 years ago

I use one every day. WiFi is unreliable and slow.

unimpressive• 14 years ago

Depends.

Ethernet cables have saved me quite a few times while installing Linux. (But that's irrelevant to apple, they don't even need to concern themselves with drivers.) Besides that I haven't really needed an ethernet cord all that often for my laptop. (Or at all really.)

For my desktop, depending on your definition of "use" (If that means installing an ethernet cable, or connecting to a network with one.) I last used one a few weeks ago, or right now.

X-Istence3• 14 years ago

Those of us who work in classified locations or on classified projects are not allowed to use wireless. Also, since when have we been able to push 1000 Mbps over Wireless?

btbuilder• 14 years ago

Used mine today to run a full time machine backup in around an hr. Over wireless it would have been 10 times that. While doable, it would have been annoying.

maybird• 14 years ago

Perhaps the average consumer's satisfied with wireless speeds, and it would make economic sense to reduce the production cost of the average system by removing the ethernet port.

ROFISH• 14 years ago

Funnily enough, yes, there is not enough space. If you look at the Macbook Air or the new Retina Macbook Pro, the cross-section is too small for a full-sized ethernet port.

For reference, the ethernet port takes up the entire height of the "old" MBP.

fiatpandas• 14 years ago

Even if they wanted to include ethernet, the retina MBP is so thin it wouldn't be able to fit an ethernet port along the edge. Look at this image for reference:

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1183987/mbp_comparison.jpg

It barely fits on the normal MBP. The only way it could fit on the edge of the Retina was if they cut through the bevel, which would be ugly.

drivebyacct2• 14 years ago

In a Macbook Air? No, there certainly isn't. Even other notebook manufacturers are hitting a thiness where ethernet is not possible. They just have tacky hinge pieces that fold down to allow the ethernet connector to slide in.

sern• 14 years ago

Interestingly, the Retina MBP has a combo Ethernet MAC/PHY + memory card reader chip of which they're only using the latter function. I would guess that either the decision to drop the Ethernet port was made pretty late in the process or the board designers were kept in the dark about the mechanical design until it was too late to pick a different part.

Also, a PCI-E lane actually is 4 pins :)

Edit: reply to dead - standalone memory card reader ICs are standard components. The USB SD ICs they used in earlier models would have been easier to route (than the PCI-E combo chip) and probably cheaper.

gte910h• 14 years ago

They have a SD card reader

gmac• 14 years ago

I note from Anandtech's review that there were serious problems with the SD reader in earlier models, so perhaps they were deliberately avoiding those ICs?

ghshephard3• 14 years ago

The 5% of users that do need an ethernet cable will be well served with a thunderbolt/USBx adapter without holding back the other 95% of us greedy bastards who continue to demand thinner/lighter.

metatronscube• 14 years ago

I'm a network Engineer and even I have to work hard to remember the last time I used an Ethernet port. Configuring routers and switches and testing scenarios are mostly done remotely via labs (although I do configure and test locally a lot as well)

As far as end user goes and my daily life outside work, I very rarely use Ethernet. I suspect the average user just doesn't have the need for it any more.

mixmastamyk3• 14 years ago

If you use voip or do any online gaming a wired connection is faster and more reliable. I suspect the average user uses one of these.

They should just make a thinner ethernet jack.

masklinn3• 14 years ago

> So, there's no space in a mac for a ethernet port?

There isn't even enough depth in the machine, they would need to cut out through the lid to have the room to put an ethernet port (not even talking about the Air there, just the new MBP). Even on the current "pro" macbooks, there is only a thin piece of case above and below the ethernet port (about a third of a mm), and the new MBP is significantly thinner[0]

> what's the advantage or serializing a pci-e bus into some 4 or so pins?

Flexibility, speed, and doubles as a video adapter (and a PCI-e lane is 4 wires already, the work is not there)

[0] http://www.zdnet.co.uk/i/z5/illo/nw/story_graphics/12june/ma... bottom is the old MBP, top is the new one, note how the flat side of the new MBP is barely thicker than a USB port.

hammock• 14 years ago

You could always orient the ethernet port so it is sticking out the top of the body (or even the bottom, with a cutout to allow the wire to exist under the body) rather than the side. Of course this is far from an elegant solution, but it's not 100% accurate to say the MBP is "too thin" for an ethernet port.

edit: I did not expect such response to this comment, I think it's quite funny :)

nickm12• 14 years ago

I recall PCMCIA cards that had slide-out ethernet ports. They definitely would have worked with the Air, though they would probably feel "cheap" compared to the rest of the build quality. Dongles always feel cheap somehow, though.

haberman• 14 years ago

A Thunderbolt port can be Ethernet, FireWire, DisplayPort, HDMI, or native Thunderbolt. The flexibility of that makes a port that can only be Ethernet seem like a total waste of space (especially at twice the size).

ricardobeat• 14 years ago

> They must be certain that ethernet port is a thing of the past

And they are probably right. For consumer applications, wi-fi already fulfills most needs right now (faster than most internet connections and spinning HDs), and it's getting faster[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac

gcb2• 14 years ago

I stand corrected. Pcie can be 4pin (same pinage as usb, power and data pairs) if you drop lane, jtag, smbus and intelligent power support

evoxed• 14 years ago

Unfortunately I think it'll take until MacBooks and iPads are literally as thin as paper (edit: hyperbole) before Japan becomes truly wifi friendly... 'til then, I'll appreciate my current MacBook and not having to carry around that dongle everywhere.

rangibaby• 14 years ago

There is plenty of semi-public Wifi in Japan. You're ostensibly meant to pay into a seperate contract, but anyone who buys an iPad gets a password to use Softbank hotspots, good for two years[1].

http://store.apple.com/jp/buy/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad/new...

spicyj• 14 years ago

I wonder if it's possible to use this as a PCIe-to-Thunderbolt adapter – as far as I can tell, all existing packaged products are at least $500.

iridium• 14 years ago

Is it the angle of the photo - or did he just melt the pcb in Photo#4 in order to wipe out the A and figure out what chip it was?

Inside Apple's Thunderbolt to Ethernet Adapter

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