PCIe 6.0 Is One Step Closer to Final Release

The PCIe 6.0 specification will be one step closer to final release in the coming months, with the first products expected to hit store shelves in 2019.

PCIe 6.0 is one step closer to final release as Intel and AMD have both released their specifications for the next generation of PCI Express.

GIGABYTE (photo credit: GIGABYTE)

PCI-SIG, the organization behind the widely used PCI Express standard, has announced that PCIe 6.0 is nearing completion. PCIe 6.0 will twice the bandwidth of PCIe 5.0, allowing data speeds of 64 GT/s and up to 256 GB/s in x16 systems. It will also include a kind of error correction that boosts bandwidth efficiency.

According to PCI-SIG:

PCI-SIG is pleased to announce that the PCIe 6.0 standard, version 0.9, has been published to our members. This is a significant step forward in our efforts to double the data throughput of PCI Express while preserving backwards compatibility. We were able to accomplish this milestone two years after announcing the PCIe 6.0 standard in June 2019 thanks to the hard work and commitment of the technical members of our protocol and electrical workgroups. The PCIe 6.0 standard, version 0.9, is the final draft of the specification, and it is used by members to conduct internal technical assessments for their key patents. During this period, no further functional changes are planned.

PCIe 6.0 specs are as follows:

The PCIe 5.0 standard is doubled in bandwidth, with 64 GT/s data throughput and up to 256 GB/s with x16 configuration.
PAM-4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation with 4 Levels) encoding takes use of industry-standard 56G PAM-4.
Encoding based on the FLIT (flow control unit)
Low-latency Forward Error Correction (FEC) with additional bandwidth-saving methods
All previous versions of PCIe technology are backwards compatible.

PCIe 5.0 will be introduced to the public for the first time on Intel’s Alder Lake architecture. PCI-SIG said it will provide additional information regarding PCIe 6.0 later this year.

PCI-SIG is the source of this information.