Broadcom's PCIe Gen 5.0 portfolio setting the foundation for next-generation servers

Broadcom Inc., a global provider in PCIe, SerDes, and switching technology, announced its broad PCIe Gen 5.0 portfolio is setting the foundation for the ecosystem to build high-performance, next-generation servers.

Broadcom PCIe Gen 5.0 SerDes, switches, and custom silicon products — which are now available to OEMs, ODMs, and cloud providers — are actively being tested and demonstrated for wide-scale interoperability.

“For the past 20 years, PCIe has been the most critical and widely adopted protocol for interconnecting CPUs, GPGPUs, FPGAs, and storage,” said Jas Tremblay, VP and GM of the Data Center Solutions Group at Broadcom. “Broadcom’s market-leading PCIe heritage and new PCIe Gen 5.0 portfolio gives us the ability to seamlessly unify the data center where high-speed computing, low latency, and data processing is critical.”

The benefits
PCIe Gen 5.0 offers double the speed over PCIe 4.0, which is critical to support data centers and storage servers supporting AI/ML, and hyperscale compute systems requiring high-performance, low-latency, scalable, and cost-effective PCIe fabrics.

Broadcom’s connectivity portfolio of PCIe Gen 5.0 products includes some of the lowest power, highest lane count, and lowest latency available in the industry. From ASICs to SerDes to switch and embedded analyzers, Broadcom is enabling PCIe Gen 5.0 industry-wide with a variety of products:

Customized ASIC development support, with 32GT/s PCIe 5.0 SerDes in 7, 5, and 3nm process technologies, along with the support of PCIe 5.0 standard products.
32GT/s PCIe SerDes, featured on its new PEX89000 PCIe Gen 5.0 series of switches, delivers a drastic improvement in power-per-Gigabyte of data transfer over previous generations.
PEX89000 switches consume less than half the power of Gen 5.0 switch alternatives and provide the best Gen 5.0 SerDes electrical performance headroom above the standard. The PEX89000 family also includes new, enhanced security features, including attestation and SPDM1.1, as well as telemetry and diagnostic features.
The world’s first embedded analyzer in PCIe switch silicon, enabling trace capabilities in system with the PEX89000 switch family.
Flexible PEX89000 evaluation boards for Gen 5.0 interop activity, including multiple expansion slots to evaluate complex systems with connectivity for Host, GPGPU, NIC, re-timer, and NVMe devices.
Leading quality of service features to manage congestion.

“Samsung has been working closely with Broadcom to ensure that PCIe Gen 5.0 interoperability and testing is seamless,” shared Soonjae Won, corporate VP, solution product & development, Samsung. “Our new PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe drives, together with the Broadcom PEX89000 switch, deliver an industry-first in the ecosystem with next-generation PCIe end-to-end solutions enabling large-scale deployment in the data center.”

End-to-end ecosystem
Broadcom is deeply committed to and invested in the industry’s interoperability of PCIe Gen 5.0. From end-to-end demonstrations at industry events to the shipment of hundreds of evaluation boards, Broadcom is facilitating the ecosystem’s transition to PCIe Gen 5.0 as the technology is rapidly maturing and the dependency for its evaluation boards is growing.

“As cutting-edge AI continues to spread across industries, demand for our multi-GPU systems has never been greater,” said Charlie Boyle, VP and GM, DGX systems, NVIDIA. “NVIDIA is working closely with Broadcom to incorporate their PCIe Generation 5 switches into our DGX system lineup to help provide our customers with the best tools to accelerate their work.”

All suppliers of accelerated computing platforms, processors, GPGPU, NVMe, re-timer, and test equipment products have received Broadcom PCIe Gen 5.0 evaluation boards for interoperability and demonstrations:

Accelerated computing providers: NVIDIA
GPGPU suppliers: Intel and AMD
NVMe suppliers: Samsung, KIOXIA, Intel, and other NVMe suppliers
Re-timer suppliers: Astera Labs and other re-timer suppliers
Test equipment suppliers: SerialTek and other test equipment suppliers
50+ OEMs and ODMs

“AMD and Broadcom have continued our longtime interoperability testing relationship,” said Raghu Nambiar, corporate VP, Datacenter Ecosystems and Solutions, AMD. “As leading innovators of next-generation technology, we are dedicated to providing in-depth testing to help ensure PCIe Gen 5.0 systems, running business-critical applications in modern data centers, can perform successfully and are in-line for market implementation.”

“Intel and Broadcom continue to work together to bring advanced PCIe technologies to market, and PCIe 5.0 technology continues our long history of enabling the ecosystem with the robust building blocks needed to build a high-performance server solution,” added Dr. Debendra Das Sharma, senior fellow, chief architect, IO Technology & Standards, Intel. “As a leading contributor to the PCIe 5.0 standard, Intel is now sampling the industry’s first PCIe 5.0 based server platform. We are delighted that Broadcom is also contributing to the ecosystem with PEX89000 switch chips, SerDes, and PHY technologies.”