SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- July 14, 2009 -- PLX Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLXT), the leading global supplier of PCI Express® (PCIe®) switch silicon with a market share of more than 65 percent, today announced sampling of four of the company's newest high-performance PCIe switches that target the server, enterprise storage, control plane, and high-end gaming markets. These devices include the highest PCIe switch lane counts in the industry, at 96 and 80 lanes. These switches are PCI-SIG® PCIe 2.0 (Gen 2) specification-compliant with unique PLX-only features, including support for x16 port configurations, integrated non-transparency (NT) ports and a suite of performance-enhancing and system de-bug tools that empower system architects.
The PLX ExpressLane™ PEX 8696 (96 lanes, 24 ports), PEX 8680 (80 lanes, 20 ports), PEX 8664 (64 lanes, 16 ports) and PEX 8649 (48 lanes, 12 ports) allow designers to build switch fabrics, redundant backplanes and complex storage applications without having to deal with high latency, high power consumption and bandwidth limitations associated with using multiple smaller switch chips. Several key customers have already received early samples and are validating the switches in their designs.
The PEX 8696, PEX 8680, PEX 8664 and PEX 8649 are among the broad portfolio of PCIe devices PLX is showcasing at this week's PCI-SIG Developers Conference in Santa Clara, Calif., where PLX also will deliver two presentations: Hard-Learned Lessons from the Verification of a PCIe Switch and PCI Express Multi-Host Switches (see www.pcisig.com/events/devcon_09).
Flexible, Configurable Ports; Robust Development Tools
The PCI-SIG standard Multicast feature is included in these PLX switches to increase performance by reducing CPU load. PLX chaired the working group at the PCI-SIG that created this standard. The Multi-root/Multi-host feature of these PLX switches offers two modes of functionality. Mode-1 enables one host port to control up to 23 endpoints, or all 24 ports communicate in peer-to-peer mode in backplane applications, where one port can be configured as non-transparent. Mode-2 expands on this with up to eight host ports.
An exclusive set of diagnostic and monitoring features called visionPAK are integrated into all PLX Gen 2 switches and are focused on getting designs to market faster. Offered standard via the PLX software design kit (SDK), visionPAK includes the ability to access internal data paths and state machines for debugging systems; a tool to measure Rx eye-width inside the device for validating signal integrity; a function to inject errors to check system behavior; loopback Tx to debug data paths, and the capability for packet performance/activity monitoring. Also fully integrated into all PLX Gen 2 switches is the unique PLX performancePAK, which provides designers additional functions to reach peak performance and includes Read Pacing to fairly allocate host port bandwidth, along with Dynamic Buffer Allocation to absorb fluctuations in bandwidth demand.
Worldwide Leadership in PCI Express
PLX's PCIe switches provide board designers and system architects with the industry's most extensive and proven lineup of products, ranging in density from three to 24 ports and from four to 96 lanes. For detailed information on the entire ExpressLane switch family, please visit www.plxtech.com/pcie or contact sales at www.plxtech.com/contact.
Pricing and Availability
The PEX 8696, PEX 8680, PEX 8664 and PEX 8649 volume prices are $148.15, $127.75, $105.85 and $78.40, respectively, and are sampling today with full production in Q3 2009.
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