Rumor | Intel will double the speed of Thunderbolt 4 in its next-gen USB type-C technology

Intel's executive vice-president and general manager of the OEM's Client Computing Group, Gregory Bryant, went to upload some selfies of himself and some team members during his trip to a non-US division. However, according to a new report, he accidentally uploaded another image showing confidential information about an unreleased technology instead.

Bryant may have corrected the mistake since; however, the shot of the alleged slide is still up on sites such as AnandTech. It refers to an "80G PHY Technology", which can be interpreted as referring to means of transferring up to 80Gb/s using a physical layer.

Furthermore, the material indicates that this apparent breakthrough is intended to be compatible with USB type-C ports. It also points to the use of a novel way of actually transmitting the bits in question: PAM (or pulse amplitude modulation)-3, as opposed to PAM-4 or the more conventional NRZ technique.

This PAM-3, then, might be a newer version of PAM-4 with similar benefits, such as up to 2x the bandwidth of NRZ. Finally, there is also mention of an "N6 test chip" in this leak, which just might indicate a 6 nanometer (nm) component. All in all, this new tip might point to something already prospectively called "Thunderbolt 5" in the works at Intel.