These are chips that are part of Intel’s own reference design for Thunderbolt 3 devices.
What makes all of this even stranger is that the hardware Apple isn’t supporting isn’t some random Thunderbolt 3 controller made by a third party. What happens to Apple buyers who pulled the trigger on a MacBook Pro and some new Thunderbolt 3 peripherals at the same time? It’s one thing to be on the cutting-edge of technology, but declaring that your users are all expected to convert to a new cable standard while simultaneously releasing hardware incompatible with all of the Thunderbolt 3 hardware currently on the market is really, really dumb. The flip side to this, however, is that Apple appears to have asleep at the switch when it comes to the hardware already on the market. That limits the amount of hardware likely to be incompatible, since not that many Thunderbolt 3 peripherals have been built yet.
If you have a Thunderbolt 2 device plugged into a Thunderbolt 3 port via an adapter, it seems to work fine. First, this problem appears to be specific to Thunderbolt 3 peripherals. We’ve got questions in to Intel about this, but here’s what we know thus far. Our Flagship TBT3-UDV dock with Power Delivery/Charging was already planned to use the next generation controller chip from TI, and will be compatible with the 2016 Thunderbolt 3 MacBooks.
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From the Plugable product line, our dual display graphics adapters for DisplayPort and HDMI (TBT3-DP2X and TBT3-HDMI2X) are affected… We’ve also postponed our TBT3-UD1 Docking Station to update to the TPS65983 chipset and re-certify to make this docking station MacBook-compatible. Certification of solutions across different device types is still in-progress for this 2nd generation chipset. Apple requires the 2nd generation TPS65983 chipset for peripherals to be compatible. These existing devices use first generation of TI USB-C chipset (TPS65982) in combination with Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 chipset (Alpine Ridge).
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The version of OS X on the new MacBook Pros (late 2016) will not work with existing Thunderbolt 3 docks and adapters that were certified for Windows prior to the release of the MacBook Pro. Here’s how the company describes the problem: After successful USB PD negotiation is complete, the TPS65982 enables the appropriate power path and configures alternate mode settings for internal and (optional) external multiplexers.”Īccording to Plugable, none of its existing hardware currently on the market is compatible with the MacBook Pro because OS X expects all devices to use the second-generation TPS6598 3 solution. Upon cable detection, the TPS65982 device communicates on the CC wire using the USB PD protocol. It’s described by Texas Instruments as: “a stand-alone USB Type-C and power delivery (PD) controller providing cable-plug and orientation detection at the USB Type-C connector. The chip specified by Intel, and used by Plugable (and possibly the entire rest of the industry) is the TPS65982. After all, Thunderbolt 3 is Thunderbolt 3… right? Apparently, no - not when Apple deploys it.Īccording to peripheral manufacturer Plugable, Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 standard specifically calls for certain TI chips to handle power delivery and alternate mode negotiation. It’s USB-C compatible (an extremely smart move from Intel) and should be a plug-and-play solution for Apple’s MacBook Pro. Thunderbolt 3 is used in the external GPU XConnect standard jointly developed by Intel, AMD, and Razer. It debuted in early June 2015, and support began shipping with Skylake hardware towards the end of last year. Now, news has surfaced that Apple’s newest MacBook Pro hardware may not be compatible with Thunderbolt 3 peripherals already on the market.įirst, some context: Thunderbolt 3 is the third iteration of Intel’s Thunderbolt interconnect standard and is the first version of that standard to be physically compatible with USB Type-C connectors. We disagreed with that decision, while acknowledging that yes, Apple does have a long history of sunsetting old standards and introducing new ones ahead of the rest of the industry (whether or not this situation is analogous is a topic we discussed).
When Apple unveiled its latest MacBook Pro hardware a few weeks back, it declared that USB-C-compatible Thunderbolt 3 ports (and lots of dongles) were the future of the company’s Mac division.
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