Efficient management of high-bandwith data transfer and seamless communication between multiple devices or subsystems are critical in automotive, industrial and data centre applications, making PCIe switches an indispensable solution.

They provide scalability, reliability and low-latency connectivity, which are crucial for handling the demanding workloads of modern High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems. Microchip Technology has recently announced sample availability of the new PCI100x family of Switchtec PCIe Gen 4.0 switches in variants to support packet switching and multi-host applications.

The company says the PCI1005 is a packet switch which expands a single host PCIe port to as many as six endpoints. The PCI1003 device enables multi-host connectivity through Non-Transparent Bridging (NTB) and is fully configurable to support from 4–8 ports. All devices are compliant with the PCI-SIG Gen5 specification and operate up to 16GT/s. High-speed DMA is supported on all variants. Advanced Switchtec technology features include Automatic Error Reporting (AER), Downstream Port Containment (DPC) and Completion Timeout Synthesis (CTS). The PCI100x devices are available in wide temperature ranges including commercial (0°C to 70°C), industrial (−40°C to 85°C) and Automotive Grade 2 (−40°C to 105°C) ambient ratings.

“The PCI100x family is a cost-effective solution that does not compromise on high performance and high reliability. It enables designers to now take advantage of PCIe switch capabilities for mass market automotive and embedded computing applications,” said Charles Forni, Vice President of Microchip’s USB and networking business unit.

“In addition to these connectivity solutions, customers can get many critical components from Microchip including timing, power management and sensors.”

 Microchip says its broad portfolio of PCIe switches provides high-density, low-power and reliable solutions for applications like data centres, GPU servers, SSD enclosures and embedded computing. The portfolio also includes Flashtec NVMe controllers and NVRAM drives, Ethernet PHYs and switches, timing solutions and Flash-based FPGAs and SoCs, supporting markets such as storage, automotive, industrial and communications.