While waiting for the launch of the PCIe 6.0 interface, the companies Nubis Communications and Alphawave Semi tested the connectivity capabilities of this interface in combination with optical fiber. To perform the test, a Nubis XT1600 optical engine was used with a PCIe 6.0 PiCORE IP controller and PipeCORE PHY from Alphawave.
This test aims to improve data center transfer Where copper has a series of limitations due to loss of speed, the further distance it must travel. The combination of the PCIe 6.0 interface and optical fiber allows us to offer a throughput of 64 Gb/s without timer, much higher than what we can currently find with the PCIe 5.0 interface and which represents half of what, theoretically, we will offer PCIe. 7.0 which will be 128 Gb/s
Using PCIe 5.0 in servers requires timers to prevent signal degradation when traveling long distances over copper cable. Depending on the type of materials used to transmit the signal, the degradation can be more or less significant and, in the case of optical fiber, in theory there is no type of loss. Eliminating timers also eliminates additional power consumption, reducing the large amounts of power needed in data centers.
The connectivity capacity offered by PCI 6.0 over optical fiber is essential to support larger clusters of artificial intelligence and machine learning servers, distributed across multiple sites, and is essential for innovation in new architectures disaggregated networks.
All large companies rely on Artificial Intelligence and need process large amounts of data as soon as possible. This need is associated with a complete overhaul of the networks of data centers located in different locations, so there is an urgent need to offer higher connection speed between the majority of its main customers, according to Alphawave’s CTO, Tom Chan.
The test carried out by Nubis and Alphawave is a targeted solution, initially, to the business world, just like servers, is not intended for any particular use, at least for the moment. The test that the two companies carried out has nothing to do with the PCI-SIG project that they announced last August using optical fiber and which also aims to improve connectivity in data transmission, especially in centers data and high performance which are also commonly used. in Artificial Intelligence.
As is generally the case, the first to benefit from this connectivity will be the data centers, so we will still have to wait a little to be able to take advantage of these data transmission speeds on our equipment.