PEX 8712, PCI Express Gen 3 Switch, 12 Lanes, 3 Ports

© PLX Technology, www.plxtech.com

Page 4 of 5

10/7/2010, Version 1.0

Memory

CPU

CPU

CPU

CPU

x4

x4

x1s

SATA

Endpoint

PCIe Gen1, Gen2, or Gen3 slots

x4

PEX 8712

PCI

PCH

rror Injection & SerDes Loopback

users can

ts

red

Applications

centric as well as peer-to-peer traffic

metric or asymmetric lane

-out

t

etwork Interface Cards

lized in communications

es.

ntion or

E

Using the PEX 8712’s Error Injection feature,

inject malformed packets and/or fatal errors into their

system and evaluate a system’s ability to detect and

recover from such errors. The PEX 8712 also suppor

Internal Tx, External Tx, Recovered Clock, and Recove

Data Loopback modes.

Suitable for host-

patterns, the PEX 8712 can be configured for a wide

variety of form factors and applications.

Host Centric Fan-out

The PEX 8712, with its sym

configuration capability, allows user-specific tuning to a

variety of host-centric applications. Figure 6 shows a

server design where the PEX 8712 is being used to fan

to endpoints and PCI Express slots. Since the PEX 8712 is

compliant with PCIe Gen

1 and Gen 2 devices, the

PEX 8712 can also

be used to bridge

Gen 1and Gen 2

endpoints to

Gen 3 chipsets

and processors

(and vice versa).

Figure 6. Host Centric Fan-Ou

N

The PEX 8712 can also be uti

applications such as Network Interface Cards (NICs).

NICs can utilize the PEX 8712 for its fan-out capabiliti

In Figure 7, the PEX 8712 is uses x4 links on a Dual-port

10-Gigabit Ethernet (GE) NIC card links to connect the

host to the 10GE ports. The peer-to-peer communication

feature of the PEX 8712 allows the endpoints to

communicate with each other without any interve

management by the host.

10 GE

10 GE

MAC/PHY

MAC/PHY

x4

x4

x4

Dual-Port NIC

PEX 8712

Figure 7. 10GE NIC Fan-Out

Embedded Sys

ited for embedded applications as

s

stem

tems

The PEX 8712 is well su

well. Embedded applications, like the example shown in

Figure 8, commonly use a number of independent module

for functions such as control plane processing, data

acquisition, or image processing to name a few

possibilities. Figure 8 represents an embedded sy

utilizing a PEX 8612 to fan-out to two ASICs/FPGAs.

x4

CPU

CPU

CPU

CPU

Memory

PEX 8712

ASIC/

FPGA

ASIC/

FPGA

x4

x4

Figure 8. Embedded Systems

ail-Over in Storage Systems with Multicast

seful

llow

data

F

The PEX 8712’s Multicast feature proves to be very u

in storage systems. In the example shown in Figure 9, the

Multicast feature enables the PEX 8712 to copy data

coming from the host to two downstream ports (see ye

traffic patterns) in one transaction as opposed to having to

execute two separate transactions to send data to the

backup chassis. By offloading the task of backing up

onto the secondary system, processor and system

performance is enhanced.

8 Disk Chassis

FC

Control

FC

Control

8 Disk Chassis

FC

Control

FC

Control

x4

x4

x4

x4

PEX 8712

PEX 8712

x4

CPU

CPU

CPU

CPU

Memory

Chipset

PEX 8712

x4

x4

Figure 9. Multicast in Storage Systems