Development kits speed PCI Express designs

Development tools are now available for the PLX ExpressLane family of PCI Express (PCIe) devices.

PLX Technology has announced general availability of the development tools for the PLX ExpressLane family of PCI Express (PCIe) devices.

Continuing its commitment to provide complete product-development solutions, PLX has begun shipping Release 1.0 of its rapid development kits (RDKs) for the ExpressLane PEX 8532 (32-lane) and PEX 8516 (16-lane) PCIe switches.

System and board designers now can streamline their PCIe designs with the PEX 8532RDK and PEX 8516RDK kits.

The new RDKs, which consist of a hardware module, software and full documentation, enable design engineers to evaluate various features of the ExpressLane switches, streamline their product development with the switch and bring their designs to market faster.

The new RDKs include the PEX 8532 and PEX 8516 devices, along with the documentation that enables hardware designers to get up and running with hardware reference design schematics, a bill of materials, Orcad symbols, and Gerber.

Additionally, they can easily tailor either kit's reference design, bill of materials and design guidelines included to quickly design their system.

Similarly, software developers can take advantage of the RDKs' executable code, source files, device drivers, and graphical user interface to start evaluating the silicon or writing their configuration code as soon as they power up the system.

The PCI Express PEX 8532 and PEX 8516 deliver unprecedented flexibility and feature richness; these are the only PCIe switches to provide nontransparent bridging, flexible port configurations and support for two virtual channels.

These characteristics enable designers of new applications to take advantage of PCIe technology's efficiencies and advanced features.

The PEX 8532 and PEX 8516 switches have been received enthusiastically by board and system manufacturers.

The switches enable them to take advantage of the devices' quality-of-service feature, through the mapping of eight traffic classes on two fully featured virtual channels.

The devices also support arbitration for each port in applications such as server, storage, multimedia and communication systems.

Additionally, these switches can be used in fan-out, peer-to-peer, aggregation, multihost, switch fabrics, intelligent-I/O, and high-availability applications.

"These RDKs represent another step by PLX to sustain the rapid deployment of PCI Express technology in the broad range of markets at which it's targeted", said Akber Kazmi, PLX Product Marketing Manager.

"As the foremost supplier of interconnect silicon, PLX is again distinguishing itself as a leader in PCI Express components market through the availability of new tools to enhance the PCIe ecosystem".

The PEX 8532RDK and PEX 8516RDK are available now, and priced at $995.00 and $900.00, respectively.

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