Microsemi Switchtec PCIe Switch Selected by Wiwynn in Taiwan

Microsemi Corporation, a provider of semiconductor solutions differentiated by power, security, reliability and performance, announced than Taiwan-based Wiwynn Corporation, a cloud infrastructure provider of computing and storage products, plus rack solutions for data centers, has selected its Switchtec PCIe Switch devices to optimize the company’s development of high quality computing and storage solutions for data centers.

The Switchtec products are optimized for NVMe just a bunch of flash (JBOF) applications, providing high density and port count PCIe switches with differentiating features such as native x2 bifurcation, and the ability to customize functionality for cloud applications. These features enable customers to use a single-chip PCIe switch to connect multiple PCIe NVMe SSDs while extending flexibility in the firmware to optimize the switch for their specific application needs.

Microsemi estimates the Switchtec products deliver 60% power savings and 75% fewer devices when compared with alternative solutions.

“We are pleased tier-one data center providers like Wiwynn can benefit from our Switchtec products and the capabilities they offer to the storage, server and data center markets, as these devices provide not only choice in the industry, but also offer innovative features optimized around the rapidly growing PCIe NVMe use cases,” said Derek Dicker, VP and business unit manager for performance storage, Microsemi.

Switchtec PCIe devices are well suited for a number of data center applications such as enterprise storage systems, storage servers and Rack Scale Architecture infrastructure providing anything from simple fan-out connectivity all the way to complex implementations for host-redundancy and failover with enclosure management. Using simple hardware configuration and advanced diagnostics and debug capabilities, the Switchtec products enable PCIe solutions for a variety of systems from scalable JBOFs to general purpose applications requiring high density, low power and reliable PCIe switching.

Wiwynn selected Switchtec PCIe switches for its new 19″ 1U All-Flash NVMe JBOF-Thunder (ST300), which enables data center operators to leverage the benefits of the OCP Lightning (ST7200). Thunder supports two PCIe 3.0 x16 connections directly from servers to 24 hot-pluggable U.2 NVMe SSDs to provide performance and low latency data access.

“We are pleased to work with Microsemi to utilize its innovative Switchtec PCIe switches on our Thunder project,” said Steven Lu, chief of product marketing, Wiwynn. “Microsemi made it possible for us to utilize a single-chip PCIe switch to connect multiple PCIe NVMe SSDs with the ability to enlarge the topology to support more NVMe SSD devices with high capacity and performance. This allowed us to optimize these devices for various applications quickly and easily.“

According to market research firm IDC’s report titled, Worldwide Solid State Drive Forecast, 2015-2019, the industry is transitioning toward PCIe-based SSDs, with these devices estimated to be more than 40% of enterprise SSD revenue by 2019. With target applications including PCIe SSD enclosures, flash arrays, multi-host architectures and high density and blade servers, Switchtec PCIe switches are engineered to scale PCIe flash in performing data center applications, providing high-reliability PCIe with advanced error containment capabilities, a flexible port bifurcation and low power, and the industry’s highest port and NTB density.

About Microsemi’s PCI Express Product Portfolio
Microsemi is a supplier of high value-add PCIe products including the scalable, low power, high-reliability PFX family of PCIe Gen3 fanout switches, the programmable PSX family of PCIe Gen3 storage switches, and the low power, multi-protocol, adaptive EQNOX family of signal conditioners with FlexEQ equalization technology supporting PCIe Gen3 and PCIe Gen2. PCIe family is key to building low power and high-reliability data center, communications, defense and industrial servers; workstations; switches; routers; cellular infrastructure and test equipment.

More information about Microsemi’s PCIe portfolio        

About Microsemi’s Product Portfolio for Data Center
Microsemi is a supplier of semiconductor, board, system, software and services for enterprise and hyperscale data centers, enabling performance, secure, low power and reliable infrastructure for scalable deployments. Its technologies drive innovation in applications including storage systems, server storage, NVM solutions, Ethernet switching, rack scale architecture, data center interconnect, network timing and power subsystems. Microsemi’s data center infrastructure portfolio is transforming networks that connect, store and move big data, while lowering the TCO of deploying next generation services. 

The portfolio includes NVMe storage controllers, NVRAM drives, SAS/SATA host bus adapters and RAID controllers enabling high capacity storage architectures, high density PCIe switching and firmware for rack scale architectures, PCIe re-drivers, and Ethernet PHYs for intra-rack connectivity. Product portfolio also includes clock and power management, IEEE1588 integrated circuits (ICs) and NTP servers for synchronization across the data center, as well as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and system-on-chip (SoC) FPGAs to perform secure system management of servers and storage.

More information