VESA Releases DisplayPort 2.1 Specification

Latest DisplayPort feature provides better alignment with USB Type-C and USB4;

BEAVERTON, Cevher. – October 17, 2022 – The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA®) announced today that it has released DisplayPort 2.1, the latest version of the DisplayPort specification, which is backward compatible with and replaces the previous version of DisplayPort (DisplayPort 2.0). VESA is working closely with member companies to ensure that products that support DisplayPort 2.0 truly meet the newer, more demanding DisplayPort 2.1 specification. Due to this effort, all pre-approved DisplayPort 2.0 products, including GPUs, docking station chips, monitor scalar chips, PHY repeater chips such as retimers, or UHBR (Ultra-high Bitrate) capable products (including DP40/DP80 cables) both passive and active and using full-size DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort, or USB Type-C connectors) – already certified for the stricter DisplayPort 2.1 specification.

Whether tunneled over a native DisplayPort cable, DisplayPort Alt Mode (DisplayPort over USB Type-C connector) or USB4 connection, achieving a solid, end-to-end user visual experience remains a top priority for VESA’s DisplayPort specification. Therefore, DisplayPort 2.1 has tightened its compliance with the USB Type-C specification and the USB4 PHY specification to facilitate a common PHY service to both DisplayPort and USB4. Additionally, DisplayPort 2.1 added a new DisplayPort bandwidth management feature to allow DisplayPort tunneling to more efficiently co-exist with other I/O data traffic over the USB4 connection. This increased efficiency surpasses mandatory support for VESA’s visually lossless Video Stream Compression (DSC) codec and VESA’s Panel Replay feature. DSC bitstream support can reduce DisplayPort transfer bandwidth by more than 67 percent without visual degradation, while VESA’s Panel Replay feature can reduce DisplayPort tunneling packet transfer bandwidth by more than 99 percent while Panel Replay is taking place.

“Achieving greater compatibility between DisplayPort and USB on a common PHY has been a particularly important effort within VESA, given the significant overlap in use-case models between the DisplayPort and USB4 ecosystems. DisplayPort 2.1 is DisplayPort to provide peak video performance across a wide range of consumer products. It combines USB4 PHY capabilities. With higher bitrates and proven visual DSC compression quality, even for HDR content, image transmission via DisplayPort offers wide bandwidth for the needs of almost any practical application. Running multiple displays over a single cable or running a single “The advanced features of the DisplayPort video interface are made possible by the invaluable contributions of our more than 300 member companies in the electronics ecosystem.”

— Alan Kobayashi, VESA Chairman of the Board and Chairman of the VESA DisplayPort Task Group.

DisplayPort 2.1 has also updated the DisplayPort cable specification to provide more robustness and improvements to full-size and Mini DisplayPort cable configurations, providing better connectivity and longer cable lengths (more than two meters for DP40 cables and one meter for DP80 cables) without reducing UHBR. performances. VESA-certified DP40 cables support four-lane UHBR10 link speed (10 Gbps) and provide a maximum throughput of 40 Gbps, while VESA-certified DP80 cables support four-lane UHBR20 link speed (20 Gbps). and a maximum throughput of 80 Gbps.

VESA certified DP40 and DP80 UHBR cables ensure display connectivity and operation at peak performance levels for products supporting DisplayPort 2.1. Source: VESA.

“For all of our standards, including DisplayPort, VESA has invested significant resources in testing and auditing procedures, including interoperability testing of products incorporating VESA features. This is to ensure that products brought to market that claim to support VESA standards meet the high quality criteria we’ve established. VESA has ‘DisplayPort’ We continue to research and develop new procedures to improve our audit process to ensure robust implementation of quality products that support this and other VESA features on the market. Thanks to input from test equipment vendors, VESA has established a robust test to support more extensive testing and deployment of DisplayPort 2.1 certified devices on the market. It has the infrastructure.”

— James Choate, director of the VESA compliance program, stated.