* Broadcom demonstration shows PCIe 2.0 in action
Broadcom this week demonstrated a 10 Gigabit Ethernet controller providing bi-directional, line-rate performance over just four lanes of PCI Express 2.0.
PCI Express (PCIe) is a bus technology for communicating within a server or PC that was launched in 2003. The PCI-SIG delivered the PCI Express Base 2.0 specification last January. One important capability of PCIe 2.0 is a doubling of the interconnect bit rate supported since Version 1.1, from 2.5Gbps to 5Gbps.
At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Broadcom showed what PCIe 2.0 could do. Instead of transmitting over eight lanes, or serial links, Broadcom was able to send 10Gbps bidirectionally using just four lanes. Broadcom says this reduces system resource requirements for the 10 Gigabit Ethernet controllers.
The PCI-SIG has already indicated that PCIe 3.0 will have a 60% speed increase over 2.0, and estimated that first products based on 3.0 could be seen as early as 2010.
Broadcom makes the chips that go into much of the network equipment out there, including adapters for servers and PCs. An OEM would use Broadcom’s controller in its adapter, and this advance allows faster communications, at least in this part of the puzzle.
At this point, bear in mind, only high-end servers would even require 10Gbps connections, as the vast majority of client systems run at 1Gbps, maximum. In fact, it has often been suggested here and elsewhere that even Gigabit Ethernet is excessive for the edge – this blog item by Michael Morris being my favorite recent example.
