Serial Cables Introduces 3 Products for Gen4 PCIe/NVMe Enablement

Serial Cables LLC announced the addition of 3 products to their offerings in the Gen4 PCIe/NVMe ecosystem.

PCIe Gen4 x16 Retimer host board

“Serial Cables has always been a pioneer in the enablement of extending PCIe/NVMe outside and throughout the server” says Paul J. Mutschler, CEO. “We listen to our customers and make sure to develop the latest/newest technology products that are both leading edge and the most reliable connectivity solutions in our industry.”

The PCIe Gen4 x16 Retimer host board is based on the PT4161L x16 PCIe 4.0 Smart Retimers from Astera Labs, Inc. This retimer allows you to expand your PCIe slot at a lower entry point than a traditional PCIe switch-based host bus adapter. It supports common clock (direct attach), hot-plug, SRNS and ^(**) SRIS, as well as ^(**) bifurcation as far as your BIOS will allow. It supports both host and target mode, allowing you ways to expand PCIe/NVMe network/expansion setup. An onboard microUSB port is installed on this board for access to our own CLI for updating firmware, checking link status and dumping any error/register logs, etc.

Pcie Gen4 X8 Sff 8644 Sff 8674 host card
with Microchip Pm40028 PCIe switch

The Gen4 PCIe x8 internal/external host card is based off of the Microchip PM40028 Switchtec PCIe switch and has both SFF-8654 (SlimSAS) and SFF-8674 (HD MiniSAS) receptacles. This is a design where there are dual x4 external connectors and 3, x4 internal connectors due to the Microchip switch having 28 Gen4 PCIe lanes. It supports PCI-Sig compliance as well as a direct attach mode/common clock mode. This host card can be configured in 1×8, 2×4 and 4×2 configurations (internal connectors can be 1×4 and 2×2) and supports both host and target modes. This host card, too, has a built-in microUSB connector and CLI for enabling/disabling RefClk and spread spectrum clocking along with the ability to show port status and link status and to update firmware in the field. The company also give saccess to the I2C busses and are able to send reads and writes. It can even send a reset, per/port, through our CLI interface.

PCIe Gen4 x16 SFF-8644 host card
with Microchip Switchtec PCIe Switch

Lastly, the Gen4 PCIe x16 external host card based off the Microchip PM40036 Switchtec PCIe switch. This is firm’s second generation of Gen4 x16 external host card. This host card enables any user to extend the bandwidth of a x16 Gen4 PCIe bus to either direct attached storage devices (where RefClk and PeRst is required) or another switched product such as a JBOF or expansion chassis (SRIS or SRNS) using industry standard and inexpensive HD MiniSAS cables. The host card can be configured 1×16, 2×8, 4×4 or 8×2 with dip switch changes making this host card very diverse in its usage. The host card supports both host and target modes. The manufacturer have included the same built-in microUSB connector and CLI for enabling/disabling RefClk and spread spectrum clocking along with the ability to show port status and link status and to update firmware in the field the same as out other products. It also gives access to the I2C busses and are able to send reads and writes and even resets as stated above.

^(**) SRIS and bifurcation are dependent on if the system bios supports these features.