PCI Express switches

IDT has announced the availability of a new series of PCI Express (PCIe) system interconnect switches that provide higher levels of performance, availability and optimal resource utilisation in demanding applications. The switches supports multicast and multi-root partitioning. Moreover, IDT is further enabling the adoption of PCIe as the primary systems interconnect for computing and communications applications by extending and exceeding the requirements of the PCIe standard.

 The PCIe Gen2-compatible switching solutions provide system architects with a partitionable switching architecture, which enables dynamic assignment of PCIe slot and I/O peripherals for on-the-fly resource sharing and load balancing among multiple root complexes. Multicast allows any switch port to simultaneously send identical data to two or more switch ports and increases system resource utilisation by decreasing the previously required hardware and software overhead needed to send copies of data in a looped manner.

This extension of the PCIe standard ensures consistency in data and table information among multiple host processors and extends the reach of PCIe into emerging enterprise computing and communications applications requiring robust data coherency and sharing. With the connectivity market poised to exceed $195 million by 2011, there is a significant market opportunity for PCIe switches and particularly Gen2 devices that address the needs of PC, embedded and communications applications, according to senior analysts at The Linley Group. The new multicast and multi-root features in the latest PCIe Gen2 switches from IDT enable designers to meet application requirements for flexibility by allocating switch and system resources.

IDT is announcing five new devices with system interconnect solutions, targeting data and services plane traffic as well as control plane traffic. Solutions for high performance data traffic include the industry’s largest PCIe switch, a 64-lane and 16-port device, as well as a 48-lane, 12-port device and a 32-lane, 8-port device. Devices for control plane traffic include a 34-lane, 16-port device and a 22-lane, 16-port device. All of the new devices are PCIe specification 2.0 compliant (Gen2) and are based on a robust system interconnect switch architecture that is optimised to meet the capacity, scalability and predictable throughput requirements demanded by systems for consistent high performance and flexible system resource sharing.

 All of the new switches have a dedicated evaluation and development kit for device testing, analysis and system emulation. Each kit consists of a hardware development board with representative upstream and downstream connectivity, and an IDT-developed, GUI-based software environment that enables the designer to tune system and device configurations to meet system requirements. Moreover, to ensure that each OEM system design is optimised for production and meets its time-to-market objectives, IDT provides customers with extensive collaborative technical support, including system modelling and signal integrity analyses, and schematic and layout review services.