Eli5: How is it possible that advancement in USB allows us to transfer larger data in faster speed, yet the diameter of the wire does not change.
In: 17
The S in USB is for serial.
In the old days many connectors were not serial and had often bigger and bigger wires to send multiple bits at the same time.
Serial connectors send these bits not next to each other over different wires but one after the other in series. This sounds like it would be slower but actually works out to be much easier and faster in practice when done right.
In practice the very first USB cables contained 4 wires to allow the transfer of data and power (including ground) via a single cable.
USB 3 added two extra pairs of wires for super speed data and some additional extra wires for power and ground for a total of 11 actual wires in the cable
USB 3.2 uses the existing wires slightly differently than originally intended to send more data over the same cable.
It is still a rather thin cable all things considered.
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