Nvidia · Intel · AMD · Tom's Hardware
PCIe 8.0 spec hits 1 TB/s of bandwidth and has new connector technology
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The PCI-SIG, the organization that oversees development of PCIe and adjacent standards, on Wednesday announced the availability of the PCIe 8.0 draft specification version 0.5, a major milestone.
Key facts
- Version 0.5 of the specification maintains that the transfer rate supported by the new interconnection will reach 256 GT/s, enabling up to 1 TB/s bi-directional bandwidth via an x16 configuration
- Loss budgets, crosstalk, and reflections have become serious constraints for PCIe 5.0 and 6.0, but with PCIe 8.0 and its 256 GT/s bit rate, a data transfer rate no copper-based standard has ever
- The PCI-SIG, the organization that oversees development of PCIe and adjacent standards, on Wednesday announced the availability of the PCIe 8.0 draft specification version 0.5, a major milestone
- This means that PCI-SIG maintains a target bit rate of 256 GT/s; PAM4 signaling with forward error correction (FEC) and Flit Mode encoding; bandwidth-improving protocol enhancements; backward
Summary
Version 0.5 of the PCIe standard is the first full draft of the spec that locks in key conceptual targets and mechanisms, and outlines all major aspects of the architecture, including electrical, logical, compliance, and software. The new release is a major milestone as this is when hardware designers, large companies like AMD, Intel, and Nvidia, as well as IP or PHY vendors, may start early prototyping and architecture work, albeit with contingency plans for possible changes. One of the intriguing parts of the announcement is that PCI-SIG continues to evaluate new connector technology, which means the current copper physical layer is getting uncomfortably close to its limits.