Version 1.1 2009
Features
PEX 8617 General Features
o
16-lane, 4-port PCIe Gen 2 switch
-
Integrated 5.0 GT/s SerDes
o
19 x 19mm
2
, 324-pin PBGA package
o
Typical Power: 1.93 Watts
PEX 8617
PCIe Gen 2, 5.0GT/s 16-lane, 4-port Switch
The
ExpressLane
TM
PEX 8617 device offers PCI Express switching
capability enabling users to add scalable high bandwidth, non-blocking
interconnection to a wide variety of applications including
workstations, storage systems, communications platforms,
embedded systems, and intelligent I/O modules.
The PEX 8617 is
well suited for
fan-out, aggregation, and peer-to-peer
applications.
High Performance & Low Packet Latency
The PEX 8617 architecture supports packet
cut-thru with a maximum
latency of 140ns (x4 to x4).
This, combined with large packet memory and
non-blocking internal switch architecture, provides full line rate on all ports
for performance-hungry applications such as
servers
and
switch fabrics.
The low latency enables applications to achieve high throughput and
performance. In addition to low latency, the device supports a
max payload
size of 2048 bytes,
enabling the user to achieve even higher throughput.
Data Integrity
The PEX 8617 provides
end-to-end CRC
(ECRC) protection and
Poison bit
support to enable designs that require
end-to-end data integrity.
PLX also
supports data path parity and memory (RAM) error correction as packets
pass through the switch.
Flexible Register & Port Configuration
The PEX 8617’s 4 ports can be configured to lane widths of x1, x2, x4, or
x8. Flexible buffer allocation, along with the device's
flexible packet flow
control,
maximizes throughput for applications where more traffic flows in
the downstream, rather than upstream, direction. Any port can be designated
as the upstream port, which can be changed dynamically. The PEX 8617 also
provides several ways to
configure its registers.
x8
x4
The device can be
configured through
strapping pins,
I
2
C
PEX 8617
PEX 8617
interface,
host software,
or an optional serial
EEPROM. This allows
x4
x4
x4 x4 x4
for easy debug during
the development phase,
x8
x4
performance monitoring
NT
during the operation
phase, and driver or
PEX 8617
PEX 8617
software upgrade.
Figure 1 shows some of
the PEX 8617’s
x8
x4 x2 x2
common port
Figure 1. Common Port Configurations
configurations.
PEX 8617 Key Features
o
Standards Compliant
-
PCI Express Base Specification, r2.0
(backwards compatible w/ PCIe r1.0a/1.1)
-
PCI Power Management Spec, r1.2
-
Microsoft Vista Compliant
-
Supports Access Control Services
-
Dynamic link-width control
-
Dynamic SerDes speed control
o
High Performance
-
Non-blocking switch fabric
-
Full line rate on all ports
-
Packet Cut-Thru with 140ns max packet
latency (x4 to x4)
-
2KB Max Payload Size
-
Read Pacing (bandwidth throttling)
-
Dual Cast
o
Flexible Configuration
-
Ports configurable as x1, x2, x4, x8
-
Registers configurable with strapping
pins, EEPROM, I
2
C, or host software
-
Lane and polarity reversal
-
Compatible with PCIe 1.0a PM
o
Dual-Host & Fail-Over Support
-
Configurable Non-Transparent port
-
Moveable upstream port
-
Crosslink port capability
-
SSC Isolation
o
Quality of Service (QoS)
-
Two Virtual Channels
-
Eight traffic classes per port
-
Weighted round-robin source
port arbitration
o
Reliability, Availability, Serviceability
-
2 Hot-Plug Ports with native HP Signals
-
All ports Hot-Plug capable thru I
2
C
(Hot-Plug Controller on every port)
-
ECRC and Poison bit support
-
Data Path parity
-
Memory (RAM) Error Correction
-
INTA# and FATAL_ERR# signals
-
Advanced Error Reporting
-
Port Status bits and GPIO available
-
Per port error diagnostics
-
Performance Monitoring
•
Per port payload & header counters
-
JTAG AC/DC boundary scan
Dual-Host & Failover Support
The PEX 8617 product supports a
Non-Transparent
(NT) Port,
which enables the implementation of
multi-
host systems
and
intelligent I/O modules
in storage,
communications, and blade server applications. The NT
port allows systems to isolate host memory domains by
presenting the processor subsystem as an endpoint rather
than another memory
Primary Host
Secondary Host
system. Base address
CPU
CPU
registers are used to
translate addresses;
Root
doorbell registers are
Complex
used to send
interrupts between
NT
the address domains;
and scratchpad
PEX 8617
Non-Transparent
Port
registers (accessible
by both CPUs) allow
End
End
inter-processor
Point
Point
communication
Figure 2. Non-Transparent Port
(see Figure 2).
In a two-port configuration (as in Figure 1), the
PEX 8617 can serve as an NT buffer, isolating two host
domains via two x8 links.
Dual Cast™
The PEX 8617 supports Dual Cast, a feature which
allows for the copying of data (e.g. packets) from one
ingress port to two egress ports allowing for higher
performance in dual-graphics, storage, security, and
redundant applications.
Read Pacing™
The Read Pacing feature allows users to throttle the
amount of read requests being made by downstream
devices. When a downstream device requests several
long reads back-to-back, the Root Complex gets tied up
in serving this downstream port. If this port has a narrow
link and is therefore slow in receiving these read packets
from the Root Complex, then other downstream ports
may become starved – thus, impacting performance. The
Read Pacing feature enhances performances by allowing
for the adequate servicing of all downstream devices.
Hot-Plug for High Availability
Hot-Plug capability allows users to replace hardware
modules and perform maintenance without powering
down the system. The PEX 8617 Hot-Plug capability
feature makes it suitable for
High Availability (HA)
applications.
Two downstream ports include a Standard
Hot-Plug Controller. If the PEX 8617 is used in an
application where one or more of its downstream ports
connect to PCI Express slots, each port’s Hot-Plug
Controller can be used to manage the hot-plug event of
its associated slot. Every port on the PEX 8617 is
equipped with a hot-plug control/status register to
support hot-plug capability through external logic via the
I
2
C interface.
SerDes Power and Signal Management
The PEX 8617 supports software control of the SerDes
outputs to allow optimization of power and signal
strength in a system. The PLX SerDes implementation
supports four levels of power – off, low, typical, and
high. The SerDes block also supports
loop-back modes
and
advanced reporting of error conditions,
which
enables efficient management of the entire system.
Interoperability
The PEX 8617 is designed to be fully compliant with the
PCI Express Base Specification r2.0, and is backwards
compatible to PCI Express Base Specification r1.1 and
r1.0a. Additionally, it supports
auto-negotiation, lane
reversal,
and
polarity reversal.
Furthermore, the
PEX 8617 is designed for Microsoft Vista compliance.
All PLX switches undergo thorough interoperability
testing in PLX’s
Interoperability Lab
and
compliance
testing at the PCI-SIG plug-fest.
Applications & Usage Models
Suitable for
host-centric
as well as
peer-to-peer traffic
patterns,
the PEX 8617 can be configured for a broad
range of form factors and applications.
Host Centric Fan-out
The PEX 8617, with its symmetric or asymmetric lane
configuration capability, allows user-specific tuning to a
variety of host-centric applications. Figure 3 shows a
typical
workstation
design where the root complex
provides a PCI Express link that needs to be expanded to
a larger number of smaller ports for a variety of I/O
functions. In this example, the PEX 8617 has a 4-lane
upstream port and three downstream ports using x4
links.
The PEX 8617 can also be used to create PCIe Gen 1
(2.5 Gbps) ports. The PEX 8617 is backwards
compatible with PCIe Gen 1 devices. Therefore, the
PEX 8617 enables a Gen 2 native Chip Set to fan-out to
Gen 1 endpoints. In Figure 3, the PCIe slots connected to
the PEX 8617’s downstream ports can be populated with
either PCIe Gen 1 or PCIe Gen 2 devices. Conversely,
the PEX 8617 can also be used to create Gen 2 ports on
a Gen 1 native Chip Set in the same fashion.
CPU
CPU
CPU
CPU
FC
FC Cont.
Quad-Port FC HBA
x4
FC
Chipset
Endpoint
Memory
FC
FC Cont.
x4
PEX 8617
x8
x16
x16
x4
FC
PEX 8617
Endpoint
Figure 5. Quad-Port Fibre-Channel HBA
Failover Storage Systems
The PEX 8617’s Dual Cast feature proves to be very
useful in storage systems. In the example shown in
Figure 6, the Dual Cast feature enables the PEX 8617 to
copy data going to its two downstream ports to the
backup system and vice versa (see yellow traffic
patterns) in one transaction as opposed to having to
execute two separate transactions to send data to the
redundant chassis. By offloading the task of backing up
data onto the secondary system, processor and system
performance is enhanced. Non-Transparent (NT) ports
are used to isolate the host domains of the backup
system from the primary system.
CPU
CPU
CPU
CPU
CPU
CPU
CPU
CPU
x4
x4
x4
PCIe Gen1 or PCIe Gen2 slots
Figure 3. Fan-in/out Usage
Network Interface Cards
The PEX 8617 can also be utilized in communications
applications such as Network Interface Cards (NICs).
NICs, like the one shown in Figure 4, can utilize the
PEX 8617 for its fan-out capabilities. In the example
below, the PEX 8617 is being used on a Dual-port 10-
Gigabit Ethernet (GE) NIC card. The PEX 8617 utilizes
a x8 link to connect to the host and two x4 downstream
links to fan-out to the 10GE ports. The peer-to-peer
communication feature of the PEX 8617 allows the
endpoints to communicate with each other without any
intervention or management by the host.
Dual-Port NIC
Backup
System
Chipset
Memory
Chipset
x4
Memory
10 GE
MAC/PHY
x4
x4
x4
NT
PEX 8617
PEX
8617
x4
10 GE
MAC/PHY
x4
PEX 8617
x8
x4
x4
x4
NT
NT
PEX 8617
x4
x4
FC
Control
PEX 8617
x4
FC
Control
x4
FC
Control
Figure 4. 10GE NIC Fan-Out
Host Bus Adapters
The PEX 8617 is well suited for Host Bus Adapter cards
(HBAs) as well. Figure 5 shows a Quad-Port Fibre
Channel HBAs utilizing the PEX 8617 to allow
connectivity to two Fibre Channel (FC) controllers. The
PEX 8617 uses a x8 link on the upstream port and two
x4 downstream links to fan-out to the FC Controllers
Each FC controller supports two FC ports.
FC
Control
8 Disk Chassis
8 Disk Chassis
Figure 6. Dual Cast in Storage Systems
Software Usage Model
From a system model viewpoint, each PCI Express port
is a virtual PCI to PCI bridge device and has its own set
of PCI Express configuration registers. It is through the
upstream port that the BIOS or host can configure the
other ports using standard PCI enumeration. The virtual
PCI to PCI bridges within the PEX 8617 are compliant
to the PCI and PCI Express system models. The
Configuration Space Registers (CSRs) in a virtual
primary/secondary PCI to PCI bridge are accessible by
type 0 configuration cycles through the virtual primary
bus interface (matching bus number, device number, and
function number).
Interrupt Sources/Events
The PEX 8617 switch supports the INTx interrupt
message type (compatible with PCI 2.3 Interrupt signals)
or Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI) when enabled.
Interrupts/messages are generated by PEX 8617 for Hot-
Plug events, doorbell interrupts, baseline error reporting,
and advanced error reporting.
Development Tools
PLX offers hardware and software tools to enable rapid
customer design activity. These tools consist of a
hardware module (PEX 8617RDK), hardware
documentation (available at
www.plxtech.com),
and a
Software Development Kit (also available at
www.plxtech.com).
ExpressLane
PEX 8617RDK
The PEX 8617RDK is a hardware module containing the
PEX 8617 which plugs right into your system. The
PEX 8617RDK can be used to test and validate customer
software, or used as an evaluation vehicle for PEX 8617
features and benefits. The PEX 8617RDK provides
everything that a user needs to get their hardware and
software development started. For more information,
please refer to the PEX 8617RDK Product Brief.
Software Development Kit (SDK)
PLX’s Software Development Kit is available for
download at
www.plxtech.com/sdk.
The software
development kit includes drivers, source code, and GUI
interfaces to aid in configuring and debugging the
PEX 8617. For more information, please refer to the
PEX 8617RDK Product Brief.
Product Ordering Information
PLX Technology, Inc.
870 Maude Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94085 USA
info@plxtech.com
www.plxtech.com
Part Number
PEX8617-BA50BC
PEX8617-BA50BC G
PEX8617BA-AIC4U4D RDK
Description
16-Lane, 4-Port PCI Express Switch (19x19mm
2
)
16-Lane, 4-Port PCI Express Switch, Pb-Free (19x19mm
2
)
PEX 8617 Rapid Development Kit
Please visit the PLX Web site at
http://www.plxtech.com
for sampling.
© 2008 PLX Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. PLX and the PLX logo are registered trademarks of PLX Technology, Inc. ExpressLane is a trademark of PLX Technology,
Inc., which may be registered in some jurisdiction. All other product names that appear in this material are for identification purposes only and are acknowledged to be
trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Information supplied by PLX is believed to be accurate and reliable, but PLX Technology, Inc. assumes no
responsibility for any errors that may appear in this material. PLX Technology, Inc. reserves the right, without notice, to make changes in product design or specification.
PEX8617-SIL-PB-1.1
5/09
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