Optimised PHY supports 1.8V, 2.5V and 3.3V supplies

18th June 2014

Staff Reporter

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Semtech has announced the addition of a new PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 PHY IP Platform offering, part of the Snowbush IP family, optimized for low power and low latency. Building on 14 successful PCIe 3.0 specification customer product tape-outs at 40nm, and six PCIe 3.0 specification customers on TSMC 28nm process, this new offering provides customers with lowest power and lowest latency, while meeting the reach requirements of compliance for PCI Express channels. The PHY provides a differentiated choice of power supplies (1.8V, 2.5V or 3.3V) to support legacy applications and ease of integration.

The ultra-low power consumption for both normal and low power state modes, combined with very low wake up latencies, enables customers to reduce system power significantly. These features give customers the best IP choice when developing PCIe interfaces for the storage, server and high-performance computing markets.

Maintaining the lowest possible power in all operating modes, while maintaining the necessary reach, is of overriding concern when using the PCI Express architecture in a server application. Legacy channels can be very lossy and often require additional power consumption. Maintaining the power efficiency across different long and short reach channels is particularly challenging. The new PHY platform from Semtech can support both long reach and short reach channels, delivering compliant performance with a best-in-class power efficiency of less than 7.5pJ/bit in 28nm. As the Snowbush technology moves to 16 FinFET, the power is expected to be reduced by as much as 30 percent.

Storage applications require low-power across all operating modes and low-latency. Providing fast wake up time in the order of tens of nano-seconds is critical in storage applications. New enhancements to the L1 sub-state have been added to reduce power when the PCI link is idle.

“Semtech’s continued investment into new product offerings helps enable the PCI Express ecosystem,” said Al Yanes, PCI-SIG® President and Chairman. “As a member of PCI-SIG, Semtech produces PCIe 3.0 products that help ensure the continued success of the PCIe 3.0 architecture in the market.”

“Northwest Logic and its customers have had very positive experiences with the Snowbush IP. This latest Snowbush PCIe PHY further extends Semtech’s strong PHY offering,” said Brian Daellenbach, President of Northwest Logic. “We fully support this PHY with our family of PCI Express controllers and DMA cores.”

"This new offering gives our customers IP that is differentiated by its performance, power, and stringent latency requirements," said Kevin Walsh, Worldwide Marketing Director, Snowbush IP. "We expect that the 28nm process node will continue to be very active for server and storage, as well as in high-end consumer applications, for some time to come. By providing robust, silicon-proven PHY IP, with significant differentiation for these segments, customers gain both in confidence and in quantifiable performance improvements.”

The PCI Express PHY IP supporting 2.5V and 3.3V is available immediately.