The Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) has released the specification for its latest PCIe 6.0 specification, which will enable data transfer rates of up to 64 gigatransfers per second (GT/s) per lane.
The new PCI Express (PCIe) technology makes for a scalable yet cost-effective interconnect solution, ideal for powering data-intensive applications and workloads, according to PCI-SIG.
Additionally, PCIe 6.0 offers double the bandwidth and power efficiency of the widely-adopted PCIe 5.0 (32 GT/s) standard, while eliminating high latency and bandwidth overhead.
Forward error correction (FEC) and cyclic redundancy check (CRC) capabilities help mitigate bit error rate increase associated with pulse amplitude modulation with 4 levels (PAM4) signaling. PCIe 6.0 is also compatible with previous versions of PCIe.
Accordingly, PCIe 6.0 features the same reference clock architecture as PCIe 5.0, as well as support for SRNS and SRIS clocking modes.
PCI-SIG chairperson and president Al Yanes said: “PCI-SIG is pleased to announce the release of the PCIe 6.0 specification less than three years after the PCIe 5.0 specification”.
“PCIe 6.0 technology is the cost-effective and scalable interconnect solution that will continue to impact data-intensive markets like data center, artificial intelligence/machine learning, HPC, automotive, IoT, and military/aerospace, while also protecting industry investments by maintaining backwards compatibility with all previous generations of PCIe technology.”
Lastly, the PCIe 6.0 technology accomodates flow control unit (Flit)-based encoding, ensuring increased bandwidth, functionality, and processing.
“With the PCI Express SSD market forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 40% to over 800 exabytes by 2025, PCI-SIG continues to meet the future needs of storage applications,” said Greg Wong, founder and principal analyst at Forward Insights.
“With the storage industry transitioning to PCIe 4.0 technology and on the cusp of introducing PCIe 5.0 technology, companies will begin adopting PCIe 6.0 technology in their roadmaps to future-proof their products and take advantage of the high bandwidth and low latency that PCI Express technology offers,” added Wong.
