IDT's PCI Express switches support multi-root partitioning
Integrated Device Technology has announced a new series of PCI Express (PCIe ) system interconnect switches that provide higher levels of performance, availability and optimal resource utilization in demanding enterprise applications.
Industry’s First PCIe Gen2 Switches with Support for Multicast and Multi-Root Partitioning
IDT(Integrated Device Technology) has announced a new series of PCI Express (PCIe) system interconnect switches that provide higher levels of performance, availability and optimal resource utilization in demanding enterprise applications. The switches, built on a new IDT architecture, are the first in the industry to support multicast and multi-root partitioning. Moreover, IDT is further enabling the adoption of PCIe as the primary system interconnect for enterprise computing and communications applications by extending and exceeding the requirements of the PCIe standard.
The new PCIe Gen2-compatible switching solutions provide system architects with unprecedented levels of flexibility through 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. The innovative architecture also provides unmatched system availability and reliability options with advanced failover support. Moreover, the partitionable architecture allows IDT customers to achieve improved power efficiency by reducing power consumption and board space requirements with a single IDT device replacing multiple discrete switches.
The new IDT switches, built on the new proprietary IDT PCIe switch architecture, are the first in the industry to support multicast. This key construct — which allows any switch port to simultaneously send identical data to two or more switch ports — increases system resource utilization 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.
IDT is announcing five (5) 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, 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 optimized to meet the capacity, scalability and predictable throughput requirements demanded by systems for consistent high performance and flexible system resource sharing. As with other established IDT solutions, the new devices have been optimized for low power and offer industry-leading performance-per-watt, enabling scalable and increasingly dense system architectures and reducing the total cost of ownership by significantly minimizing thermal management requirements.
Development Tools and Customer Support
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 optimized for production and meets its time-to-market objectives, IDT provides customers with extensive collaborative technical support, including system modeling and signal integrity analyses, and schematic and layout review services.
Pricing and Availability
All five new devices are currently sampling to qualified customers. The devices are each offered in ball grid array (BGA) packaging with each configuration having a pin-compatible package option for backward compatibility to equivalent IDT PCIe Gen1 solutions. For detailed information on the new series of devices, including pricing, visit www.IDT.com/go/PCIe
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