The new devices enable the cost-effective development of new systems by doubling the throughput bandwidth of existing PCIe lanes to 5 gigabits per second (Gbps) of data transfer allowing a 50 percent reduction in the number of PCIe lanes and board traces necessary to support link throughput requirements. This simplified board layout reduces system design and manufacturing costs while speeding time to market. The initial IDT PCIe Gen2 offering consists of two switches, a 12-lane, 3-port switch (89PES12T3G2) and a 16-lane, 4-port switch (89PES16T4G2). The switches provide 12 and 16 gigabytes per second of total switching bandwidth, are PCIe 2.0 compliant and offer optimized power consumption to reduce total cost of ownership and reduce thermal design complexity.
Each of the new devices has a dedicated evaluation and development kit for device testing and analysis, and system emulation. Each kit consists of a hardware evaluation board with representative upstream and downstream connectivity, and an IDT-developed, GUI-based software environment that enables the designer to tune system and device configurations to meet system requirements. Additionally, IDT provides customers with extensive, collaborative technical support including system modelling and signal integrity analyses, and schematic and layout review services.