Advanced Micro Devices today announced a new controller – or HyperTransport tunnel – to enable PCI-X 2.0 slots on the forthcoming servers and workstations based on AMD Opteron processors and AMD-8000 series core-logic.

PCI-X 2.0 – 533MHz PCI Technology

PCI-X 2.0 is a new, higher speed version of the conventional PCI standard, which supported signaling speeds up to 533MHz. Revision 1.0 of the PCI-X specification defined PCI-X 66 and PCI-X 133 devices that transferred data up to 133MHz, or over 1GB/s for a 64-bit device. The present revision adds two new speed grades: PCI-X 266 and PCI-X 533, offering up to 4.3GB/s of bandwidth, 32 times faster than the first generation of PCI. Another major feature of the PCI-X 2.0 specification is enhanced system reliability. ECC support has been added both for the header and payload, providing automatic single-bit error recovery and double-bit error detection. These new standards keep pace with upcoming advances in high-bandwidth business-critical applications such as Fibre Channel, RAID, networking, InfiniBand Architecture, SCSI, and iSCSI.

PCI-X 2.0 is built upon the same architecture, protocols, signals, and connector as traditional PCI. The reuse of many of the design elements from the conventional PCI and PCI-X1.0b standards eases design and implementation migration. Migration to PCI-X 266 and PCI-X 533 is further simplified by retaining hardware and software compatibility with previous generations of PCI and PCI-X. As a result, new designs can immediately connect with hundreds of PCI and PCI-X products that are currently available. The combination of backwards compatibility and ease of migration provides investment protection for customers, developers, and manufacturers of existing PCI and PCI-X technologies as they migrate to PCI-X 266 and PCI-X 533.

PCI-X 2.0 also includes new features that will enhance applications in the future. It defines a new 16-bit interface width specifically designed for those applications that are constrained by space, such as embedded RAID controllers, or portable applications. PCI-X 2.0 also expands the device configuration space for each device-function to 4KB, and defines a new Device ID Message transaction to enable simplified peer-topeer transactions for applications such as streaming-media.

AMD Details AMD-8132 Chip

Designed for modes 1 and 2 operation, the AMD-8132 component brings high-performance PCI-X 2.0 connectivity to AMD Opteron processor-based systems with increased throughput, improved RAS capabilities, robust data management and enhanced HyperTransport technology connectivity.

The number of products supporting the AMD Opteron processor continues to grow. Core-logic solutions that support AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture are available from leading chipset partners including ATI, Broadcom, NVIDIA, SiS, ULi and VIA Technologies, AMD said.

AMD plans to begin shipping the AMD-8132 HyperTransport PCI-X 2.0 tunnel for servers and workstations in the fourth quarter of this year.