PCI Express looks to optical links
The PCI-SIG special interest group has formed a workgroup to develop a specification for running PCI Express (PCIe) technology over optical connections.
The PCI-SIG Optical Workgroup intends to be optical technology-agnostic, supporting a wide range of optical technologies, while potentially developing technology-specific form factors.
This comes as PCIe is used for chip to chip interconnect and data centre and quantum computing systems and there have been various tests of the technology over optical lines.
- First successful PCIe 5.0 optical signal transmission test
- PCIe card has UltraScale+ FPGA and terabit optical I/O
- Demo of world’s first optical network-on-chip processor
Existing PCI-SIG workgroups will continue their generational march towards a 128GT/s data rate in the PCIe 7.0 specification, which is currently at version 0.3 and targeted for release in 2025.
Optical connections will be an important advancement for PCIe architecture as they will allow for higher performance, lower power consumption, extended reach and reduced latency,” said Nathan Brookwood, Research Fellow at Insight 64. “Many data-demanding markets and applications such as Cloud and Quantum Computing, Hyperscale Data Centers and High-Performance Computing will benefit from PCIe architecture leveraging optical connections.”
“We have seen strong interest from the industry to broaden the reach of the established, multi-generational and power-efficient PCIe technology standard by enabling optical connections between applications,” said PCI-SIG President and Chairperson Al Yanes.
“PCI-SIG welcomes input from the industry and invites all PCI-SIG members to join the Optical Workgroup, share their expertise and help set specific workgroup goals and requirements.”
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