External PCI express.

sviss

Expert 1530 points

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: XIO2000A, XIO3130

(unable to find a place in the forum for this thread better than here, so ...)

There was times when Texas Instruments widely announced (that time) new technology - cabled PCI express.

Then Molex started production of connectors, and cables...

Now, I see no signs of (at least new, at most any) external PCI express products at TI portfolio.

And recently Molex marked its PCIe x1 external connector as "obsolete".

What does this all mean? Any suggestions, links, information are welcome.

I guess that in some cases cabled PCI express x1 could be implemented in optics using plain GBIC/SFP.

But how about the standard? Is it dead?

over 16 years ago

Brad Ruzicka over 16 years ago

TI__Prodigy 515 points

PCI-SIG released the PCI Express External Cabling 1.0 Spec in early 2007, which provides a standard method for using PCI Excpress over a cable and cable connectors. I just checked Molex's site this morning and I do see where they have OBS their 0741500001 connector, but have linked to a replacement connector 0749603018.

http://www.molex.com/molex/products/datasheet.jsp?part=active/0749603018_IO_CONNECTORS.xml&channel=Products&Lang=en-US

It appears this was done for RoHS and China RoHS concerns, where the old connector was leaded and this new connector is lead-free. In TI's portfolio, we have a few devices that have been demonstrated to work with Cabled PCI Express, including our XIO3130 4-lane 4-port packet switch and XIO2000A bridge with up to 7 meters of PCI Express cabling. Cabled PCI Express has not taken off in the consumer market as once hoped, but it is definitely used in server implementations for I/O expansion. I hope this answers your questions.

sviss over 16 years ago in reply to Brad Ruzicka

Expert 1530 points

Yes.

Thank you. :-)

Interface

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External PCI express.