PCI-SIG announced that the PCIe 7.0 specification will reach 128 GT/s
The PCI-SIG started work on the PCIe 6.0 specification in June 2019. After two years and seven months, the PCI-SIG officially released the PCIe 6.0 specification to its members in January 2022. Products that support the PCIe 6.0 specification are not expected to be available until late 2023 or sometime in 2024.
Although we have just seen products that support the PCIe 5.0 specification, products that comply with the PCIe 6.0 specification are still some way away, but the PCI-SIG has already begun preparations for the next-generation PCIe 7.0 specification.
At the 2022 PCI-SIG Developer Conference, PCI-SIG celebrated its 30th anniversary and announced the next-generation PCIe 7.0 specification. Its data transfer rate will double again to 128 GT/s, with a planned release to its members in 2025.
The PCI-SIG Technical Working Group will develop the PCIe 7.0 specification with the following target features:
- Delivering 128 GT/s raw bit rate and up to 512 GB/s bi-directionally via x16 configuration
- Utilizing PAM4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation with 4 levels) signaling
- Focusing on the channel parameters and reach
- Continuing to deliver the low-latency and high-reliability targets
- Improving power efficiency
- Maintaining backwards compatibility with all previous generations of PCIe technology
“With the forthcoming PCIe 7.0 specification, PCI-SIG continues our 30-year commitment to delivering industry-leading specifications that push the boundaries of innovation,” said Al Yanes, PCI-SIG President and Chairperson. “As PCIe technology continues to evolve to meet the high bandwidth demands, our workgroups’ focus will be on channel parameters and reach and improving power efficiency.”
The PCIe 7.0 specification will address the need for reliable, high-speed, low-latency I/O interconnects, and the roadmap covers data-intensive applications and markets, including 800Gig Ethernet, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), high-performance computing (HPC), quantum computing, hyperscale data center and cloud applications, etc.
