Renesas Develops IP Supporting PCI Express 2.0 High-Speed Serial Interface Standard

PCI Express 2.0, the newest version (Rev. 2.0) of the PCI Express standard, supports high-speed data transfer at up to 5.0 gigabits per second (Gbps).



The new IP was one of the first for the logical and physical layer to be received Rev. 2.0 certification at Compliance Workshop #62 (September 8 through 12, 2008), sponsored by the standards body PCI-SIG, and supports the 65 nm process node. LSIs incorporating this IP will enable easy connection to other devices supporting the PCI Express 2.0 standard, enabling developers to create systems with high-end graphics processing capabilities.



Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) is an interface for connecting the microprocessor of a personal computer (PC) with peripheral devices and peripheral equipment. A parallel transfer interface standard specified by PCI-SIG, PCI is in widespread use as a standard PC interface. A large number of peripheral device products support the PCI standard.



However, as PC performance was improved year by year, graphics and other applications that handle large volumes of data are becoming more numerous. Data volumes were expected to continue to increase, rendering the transfer performance of PCI insufficient. This led PCI-SIG to develop a next-generated interface standard called PCI Express to support high-speed serial data transfer. Currently a large number of products are compatible with Rev. 1.1, which supports a maximum data transfer speed of 2.5 Gbps. Nevertheless, applications in fields such as graphics and storage demand large-volume data transfers at even wider bandwidths. The newly established Rev. 2.0 provides high-speed data transfer up to twice as fast as Rev. 1.1, and the number of products supporting Rev. 2.0 is anticipated to increase rapidly.



At the same time, there is demand in the embedded field for a standard interface for connecting peripheral devices, LSIs, etc., from the viewpoint of larger-scale systems and increased development efficiency. For this reason, LSIs for embedded applications have started to offer PCI interface functions, enabling use of the many PCI-compliant peripheral devices developed for PCs. In addition, embedded devices for fields such as multimedia now require the ability to transfer large data volumes at speeds on a par with PCs. This has resulted in expanded demand for PCI Express support.



Renesas Technology has developed IP supporting a variety of interfaces, including PCI, and has steadily expanded its product lineup, increasing its market share and accumulating valuable expertise in the process.



Renesas Technology developed and obtained certification of IP supporting Rev. 1.1 of PCI Express, and has released microprocessor and SoC (System on Chip) products incorporating it. Now the company has developed IP supporting the new PCI Express 2.0 standard, which delivers high-speed data transfer at twice the rate of PCI Express 1.1.