is it thunderbolt emulated through software on the USB pin stack? or is it really thunderbolt pins offering a USB connector, emulating USB protocols on the thunderbolt stack?
No. Some pins in USB can be used for non-USB protocols. If your monitor takes USB-C, likely the video signal is transmitted using DisplayPort on those pins.
Its capable of some pretty high bandwidths, there’s some extra hardware required to make the ports work for thunderbolt. But I think it just runs through the normal USB-C pins.
Its more like an internal switch, rather than emulation.
At least the Wikipedia page mentions different pin configurations per usage mode…
I asked a slop machine and it said that Thunderbolt is implemented in the PCIe/Displayport hardware mode of the USB. I then checked the wikipedia and it more or less aligned with that interpretation
Macbooks have had Thunderbolt 3 (the protocol) over USB-C (the physical form factor) since about 2015. The Thunderbolt 3 protocol became incorporated into the USB 4 standard in 2019 (and is implemented on the physical USB-C port).
Earlier versions of Thunderbolt were proprietary standards jointly controlled by Apple and Intel, but implemented over Mini-DisplayPort connectors. They were phased out in new devices starting in around 2015.
aren’t these different tech stacks and connectors?
used to be, not anymore though, thunderbolt uses the same ports as USB C and is compatible with USB C, you can think of thunderbolt as enhanced USB C
is it thunderbolt emulated through software on the USB pin stack? or is it really thunderbolt pins offering a USB connector, emulating USB protocols on the thunderbolt stack?
No. Some pins in USB can be used for non-USB protocols. If your monitor takes USB-C, likely the video signal is transmitted using DisplayPort on those pins.
Ditto thunderbolt.
i’m sorry, i don’t know the details of how it’s implemented exactly
Its capable of some pretty high bandwidths, there’s some extra hardware required to make the ports work for thunderbolt. But I think it just runs through the normal USB-C pins.
Its more like an internal switch, rather than emulation. At least the Wikipedia page mentions different pin configurations per usage mode…
I asked a slop machine and it said that Thunderbolt is implemented in the PCIe/Displayport hardware mode of the USB. I then checked the wikipedia and it more or less aligned with that interpretation
Macbooks have had Thunderbolt 3 (the protocol) over USB-C (the physical form factor) since about 2015. The Thunderbolt 3 protocol became incorporated into the USB 4 standard in 2019 (and is implemented on the physical USB-C port).
Earlier versions of Thunderbolt were proprietary standards jointly controlled by Apple and Intel, but implemented over Mini-DisplayPort connectors. They were phased out in new devices starting in around 2015.