External PCIe Cable Standard by PCI&PCIE-SIG

PCI Express Group Proposes External PCIe Cable Standard.

PCIe SIG Opposes Thunderbolt with Own Standard


At the annual meeting, PCI special interest group (PCI SIG) announced plans to develop a PCI Express-based interconnection standard for external devices. The standard will directly compete against Thunderbolt (co-developed by Apple and Intel), its successors as well as USB 3.0.

The proposed external PCI Express specification is projected to be based on the PCIe 3.0 technology and will support four lanes with transfer speed of up to 32Gb/s, according to EETimes. Initially, the interconnection will use copper wires, but eventually, as the speeds get higher and when the technology adopts the PCI Express 4.0 protocol, wires may be changes to optical. Naturally, the future flavours will challenge not only Thunderbolt with its 10Gb/s interconnection, but also its successors.

"This will help proliferate PCI Express into new business opportunities. Right now we see a need from our members," Yanes said, declining to comment on Thunderbolt directly. There are solutions [like this] in the industry - Thunderbolt is one of them, and some companies are doing own thing," said Al Yanes, president of the PCI SIG.

To read more go to this URL:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20110622172409_PCI_Expre...