VESA announces new DisplayPort 2.1 specification: greater alignment to USB4

VESA announces new DisplayPort 2.1 specification: greater alignment to USB4 – l VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) announced the release of the DisplayPort specifications 2.1which ensure backward compatibility with previous versions and replace version 2.0 of the same specifications.

The VESA ensures to have worked closely with the companies of the association to ensure that products that support DisplayPort 2.0 are able to meet the more stringent requirements of the new version. All DisplayPort 2.0 products previously certified, including Ultra-High Bit Rate compatible products, they are therefore already certified for DisplayPort 2.1 specifications.

In this version of the specification the Association has worked to strengthen alignment with USB Type-C and PHY USB4so as to facilitate the use of a common PHY that can serve both DisplayPort and USB4.

Alan Kobayashichair of the VESA board of directors and chair of the VESA DisplayPort business group, commented:

“Achieving greater alignment between DisplayPort and USB on a common PHY was a particularly important effort within VESA, given the significant overlap in use case patterns between the DisplayPort and USB4 ecosystems. DisplayPort 2.1 brings DisplayPort to convergence. with USB4 PHY specification to ensure maximum video performance across a wide range of consumer products. Display transport via DisplayPort, with its higher bit rates and proven visual quality of DSC compression even for HDR content, offers ample bandwidth for the needs of virtually any practical application. Features such as driving multiple displays on a single cable or enabling multiple functions on a single port such as video, power and data transfer no longer require any compromise in the choice of video format The advanced capabilities of the DisplayPort video interface are made possible by the prices the contributions of our more than 300 member companies from across the electronic ecosystem. “

DisplayPort 2.1 adds a new DisplayPort bandwidth management feature to allow DisplayPort tunneling to coexist with other I / O data traffic more efficiently over the USB4 link. This increased efficiency adds to the mandatory support for il
codec Display Stream Compression (DSC) e VESA’s Panel Replay featureSupport for DSC bitstream can reduce the transport bandwidth of DisplayPort packets by more than 67% without visual artifacts, while VESA’s Panel Replay feature can reduce the transport bandwidth of DisplayPort tunneling packets by more than 99% when the Panel Replay operation is in progress.

The new 2.1 specification of the DisplayPort standard also goes to update requirements for DisplayPort cables so that they can provide greater robustness, as well as improvements to full-size and Mini DisplayPort cable configurations that allow for better connectivity, as well as longer lengths (over two meters for DP40 cables and over one meter for DP80 cables) without degrading UHBR performance. VESA certified DP40 cables support connection speeds up to UHBR10 (10 Gbps), over four lines, providing a maximum throughput of 40 Gbps, while VESA certified DP80 cables support connection speeds up to UHBR20 (20 Gbps), always on four lines, providing a maximum throughput of 80 Gbps.