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PCIe Gen 4 represents an exciting new advancement in input/output (I/O) technology and is expected to be widely adopted across a wide range of data centre and automotive advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) equipment utilising processing and peripheral devices such as graphics processing units (GPUs), central processing units (CPUs), network interface cards (NICs), NVM Express (NVMe) solid state drives (SSDs), storage controllers, automotive cameras and Infotainment.
Applications such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as traditional enterprise workloads utilising networking, storage and offload processors, all benefit from the increased bandwidth of PCIe Gen 4 systems.
Market research firm Gartner estimates the worldwide IT data centre systems equipment segment to be greater than $170 billion in 2018.
“Microsemi’s Switchtec PCIe Gen 4 development platform is a compelling tool for customers to accelerate their PCIe Gen 4 designs and reduce risk in both hardware and firmware development, ultimately enabling our customers to get to market faster,” said Andrew Dieckmann, vice president marketing, data center solutions, at Microsemi. “We are excited to continue our leadership and innovation in the PCIe switch market with our Switchtec solutions differentiated by enhanced diagnostics, solution programmability and low power.”
Microsemi‘s Switchtec PCIe Gen 4 family comprises switches from 96 lanes to 24 lanes, providing:* High port density with up to 48 ports and 48 NTBs
* Flexible port bifurcation, from x2 to x16 lanes per port
* Switch partition capabilities with up to 24 switch partitions
* Advanced error reporting
* Error containment for surprise-plug and unplug to prevent system crashes
* Advanced diagnostics and debug features to identify, diagnose and fix problems.
