Light Peak is said to be essentially an effort to merge the future of both USB and display interfaces such as DisplayPort. It parallels the efforts years ago to consolidate serial and parallel ports on USB.

Intel last week demonstrated an early version of the link carrying uncompressed high-definition video over 40 metres from a notebook computer to a monitor at the Intel Developer Forum. The technology could run at distances up to 100 metres, executives said.

"The reason we showed it in a notebook is the number of connectors you need limits the size of the system," said Dadi Perlmutter, GM of the Intel Architecture Group. in a keynote address.

Light Peak is well ahead of demand. The 5GHz USB 3.0 is due to emerge in products next year, and DisplayPort, an interface that is replacing analog VGA and DVI, is now becoming mainstream on PC products.

"It will take years for this technology to be mainstream," admitted Perlmutter.