Liqid and Broadcom Launches PCIe Gen 4.0 Fabric Reference Design Kit

Liqid, Inc. announced a collaboration with Broadcom, Inc. to deliver the PCIe Gen 4.0 Fabric Reference Design Kit (RDK).

To drive data center adoption of the high-speed PCIe connectivity, the two companies have built a managed-fabric solution powered by Liqid Command Center orchestration software and Broadcom PEX88000 PCIe Gen 4.0 switches to enable R&D departments to evaluate and accelerate deployment of Gen 4.0 solutions in the marketplace for next gen data center applications.

“Edge and 5G computing, AI+ML workloads, high-value HPC applications, and composable infrastructure deployments are all use cases that benefit from high-speed data transfers and low latency PCIe Gen 4.0 solutions,” said Jas Tremblay, VP and GM, data center storage group, Broadcom. “Through our joint efforts, Liqid and Broadcom empower companies to deliver PCIe Gen 4.0 solutions that offer scalable performance, composable architecture, ease of management, and superior power efficiency for applications driving innovation across vertical markets.“

Reference Design Kit (RDK) platform for next PCIe Gen 4.0 fabric solutions
PCIe Gen 4.0 doubles the throughput over Gen 3.0, achieving bandwidth of up to 256GT/s per port, substantially reducing transfer time for big data applications. Broadcom capitalizes on these performance gains with the PEX88000 PCIe Gen 4.0 family of switches. Building on the firm’s PCIe Gen 3.0 switches, which set the Gen 3.0 performance benchmark, the PEX88000 series increases performance and reduces latency, enabling a rack-scale fabric solution for PCIe Gen 4.0 that is high-performing, scalable, composable and highly available.

To meet demand for quickly validating the concepts and successfully bringing PCIe Gen 4.0 solutions to market, the 2 companies have collaborated to deliver a PCIe Gen 4.0 development platform. The platform is a purpose-built, turnkey solution to enable rapid prototyping, development, and qualification of solutions leveraging intelligent PCIe Gen 4.0 fabric. The fabric management stack leverages Liqid Command Center composable infrastructure software to deliver accelerated productivity, hardware flexibility and ease of use. Users can begin test and development by writing software vs. Liqid RESTful API or using the user interface.

PCIe Gen 4.0 Fabric RDK includes all gear needed to get started with application testing and validation, including:

• 1xFabric management node

• Liqid Command Center fabric and orchestration software

• 1×24-Port PCIe Gen 4.0 fabric switch

• 1xPCIe Gen 4.0 expansion chassis

• 2xPCIe Gen 4.0 HBAs

• 17xMini-SAS HD cables

Users may add the desired number of host nodes, GPUs, NVMe SSDs and NICs to available 24 x4 PCIe Gen4 ports for their analysis. The Fabric RDK kit can be cascaded with additional RDKs to expand the topology. All components are preconfigured to work out-of-the-box by connecting to power and ethernet. The PCIe Gen 4.0 RDK from the 2 companies ships in a pre-racked configuration or with the option to be rack mountable. The RDK includes all necessary cabling, documentation, reference code, and OS images to get started in minutes.

“To take full advantage of PCIe Gen 4.0 solutions, the industry needs reliable, turnkey platforms on which to effectively and swiftly validate new devices and applications,” said Sumit Puri, CEO and cofounder, Liqid. “We are pleased to work with the PCIe industry leader Broadcom to deliver a comprehensive RDK platform that can enable new Gen 4.0 products to market quickly and accelerate mission-critical data center operations across public and private sectors.“

Resource:
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