PCI-SIG has established a new Optical Workgroup to deliver PCI Express (PCIe) technology over optical connections.
The PCI-SIG Optical Workgroup intends to be optical technology-agnostic, supporting a wide range of optical technologies, while potentially developing technology-specific form factors.
“Optical connections will be an important advancement for PCIe architecture as they will allow for higher performance, lower power consumption, extended reach and reduced latency,” said Nathan Brookwood, Research Fellow at Insight 64.
“Many data-demanding markets and applications such as Cloud and Quantum Computing, Hyperscale Data Centers and High-Performance Computing will benefit from PCIe architecture leveraging optical connections.”
“We have seen strong interest from the industry to broaden the reach of the established, multi-generational and power-efficient PCIe technology standard by enabling optical connections between applications,” said PCI-SIG President and Chairperson Al Yanes.
Existing PCI-SIG workgroups will continue their generational march towards a 128GT/s data rate in the PCIe 7.0 specification, while this new optical workgroup will work to make the PCIe architecture more optical-friendly.
