Product category:
Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: PLX Technology Europe | Subject: PEX 8508 and PEX 8518
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 02 May 2006
PCI Express switches pass compliance
test
The PLX ExpressLane PEX 8508 and PEX 8518 PCIe switches have been added to the PCI Special Interest Group Integrators List.
The PLX ExpressLane PEX 8508 and PEX 8518 PCIe switches have been added to the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) Integrators List At the recent PCI-SIG Compliance Workshop, the PEX 8508 and PEX 8518 each passed the PCI-SIG's rigorous interoperability and compliance tests to achieve spots on the distinguished list
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 20 Aug 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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The ExpressLane PEX 8508 and PEX 8518 switches feature a cut-through architecture, nontransparent bridging and small package sizes that reduce power and space requirements.
The PEX 8508 is an eight-lane PCIe switch with five highly configurable ports and low latency of 150ns, enabling a wider range of PCIe applications.
The industry's only five-port, 16-lane PCIe switching device, the PEX 8518 enables demanding applications such as storage systems to move data more efficiently between disk arrays and system memory.
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The two devices join the several ExpressLane devices already on the Integrators List.
The 16-lane PEX 8516 and 32-lane PEX 8532 switches were added to the list in 2005, as were forward- and reverse-mode versions of the PEX 8111 PCIe-to-PCI and PEX 8114 PCIe-to-PCI-X bridges.
No other vendor has as many PCIe switches and bridges on the Integrators List.
"The PEX 8508 and PEX 8518, along with the ExpressLane switches and bridges already on the Integrators List, were designed to provide an excellent mix of features and flexibility for developing new or upgraded PCI Express designs", said Akber Kazmi, PLX Product Marketing Director responsible for PCIe switches.
"That they're formally recognised and validated by the PCI-SIG through interoperability and protocol-compliance testing helps assure system and board developers that their interconnect and interoperability goals can be achieved with the ExpressLane family".
PLX designed the ExpressLane family to meet both the stringent requirements of customers and the rigorous compliance testing of the PCI-SIG.
During the development phase, PLX verification and validation teams created a superset of the PCI-SIG compliance suites and put these devices through these tests during simulation, emulation and silicon testing.
In addition to this testing of the silicon before participating in the compliance testing, PLX performed interoperability with products from various vendors in its own labs.
As a result, the PEX 8508 and PEX 8518 passed the PCI-SIG compliance testing the first time.
The PCI-SIG is the group managing PCI and PCIe specifications as open industry standards.
The Integrators List includes all products that have successfully completed the testing procedures of the PCI-SIG's Compliance Workshop.
Companies often refer to the list when making company-to-company purchases.
As part of the PCI-SIG's compliance programme, each workshop participant must pass several tests in order to be placed on the Integrators List.
This helps assure designers that they can integrate the ExpressLane devices with other PCIe technology-compliant components and systems.
It also broadens the system-interconnect ecosystem needed for the deployment of the PCIe architecture in mainstream and mission-critical applications.
The PCI-SIG hosts its compliance workshops up to six times per year, presenting an environment for members to test and validate their products before they reach market.
Testing is completed in systems approved by the PCI-SIG, as well as those from other leading manufacturers of products based on PCI-SIG technologies.
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