Serial Cables: PCI-AD-x16HE-BG4 PCIe Gen 4 Host Card Adapter

Serial Cables, LLC has introduced a PCIe Gen 4 host card adapter, the PCI-AD-x16HE-BG4.

“Serial Cables was very early to commit to PCIe and one of the first to put a PCIe switch onto a x16 and x8 host card to extend Gen3 PCIe outside the server that was available to the public,” said Paul J. Mutschler, CEO, Serial Cables. “Being a leader in the newest technology, Serial Cables is now announcing our Gen4 x16 PCIe host card based on the Broadcom Atlas Gen4 PCIe 32 lane switch. Our Gen4 host card can support the PCI Sig external cable pinout as well as direct attach devices that require a refclk and perst signal (dual refclk’s and perst signals for supporting 2×2) supporting 1×16, 2×8, 4×4 and 8×2 on a single board. Not only do we develop and deploy the Gen4 host cards but we also manufacture the Gen4 SFF-8644 based external cables and, coming soon, our Gen4 capable JBOF’s.“

This latest generation host card adapter fits in a PCIe 4.0 x16 half-length, half-height server slot, and features four SFF-8644 cable connectors on the IO bracket for expansion and composable infrastructure applications. Serial Cables plans to begin shipping prototypes the PCI-AD-x16HE-BG4 in 4Q18 with production available 1Q19.

The flexible Gen 4 cable adapter complies with the PCI-SIG PCIe cable standard, and it uses mini-SAS HD and cable management interface (CMI) compliant copper and fiber optic cables. This flexibility allows for the highest speed PCIe system-to-system and rack-to-rack interconnects, delivering bandwidth up to 256Gb/s and latency of less than 150ns. Gen 4 includes improvements in flexibility, scalability and lower-power due to bandwidth bifurcation options of the cable and modern 16nm integrated circuit design.

Customers can pre-order PCIe Gen 4 cable adapters from the company’s sales engineers.