PLDA Announces Gen4SWITCH - The Industry's First PCI Express 4.0 Platform Development Kit (PDK)

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 21, 2016 -- PLDA, the industry leader in PCI Express® interface IP solutions today announced the industry’s first full PCIe 4.0 platform with the launch of the PLDA Gen4SWITCH. Early adopters of PCI Express 4.0 technology can view the demo of this new PCIe 4.0 platform at the PLDA booth, during PCI-SIG® DevCon to be held on June 28-29, 2016 in Santa Clara, CA.

PLDA’s Gen4SWITCH is a complete development platform based on PLDA’s PCIe compliant XpressSWITCH IP and PLDA’s XpressRICH4™ controller IP for PCIe 4.0 technology running on a Xilinx® Virtex® UltraScale™ FPGA.This new product provides the first PCIe 3.0-x8 (upstream) to PCIe 4.0-x4 (downstream) Integration Backplane. By working with the PLDA Gen4SWITCH, early developers of PCIe 4.0 technology can be among the first to test PCIe 4.0 architecture for Endpoint/PHY/boards with their own software, designs and boards in a real system.

The PLDA Gen4SWITCH provides key benefits for PCIe designers, ASIC designers and the entire PCIe Ecosystem, enabling them to seamlessly test their PCIe 4.0 solutions by connecting their endpoint board to the PLDA Gen4SWITCH platform. This early release of a PCIe 4.0 platform is a chance for designers to reduce their time-to-market for the next-generation applications that will truly benefit from the PCIe 4.0 architecture:

• In networking applications, the PCIe 4.0 architecture will reduce routing complexity and optimize cost, packaging and power issues for 40 Gb Ethernet applications by switching the PCIe 3.0 to PCIe 4.0 architecture.
• In the storage space, PCIe 4.0 solutions will improve the throughput to 16GT/s per lane with PCIe 4.0 technology combined with NVMe.

The PLDA Gen4SWITCH was developed in conjunction with Samtec®, a provider of the patented FIREFLY™ system, enabling chip-to-chip, board-to-board and system-to-system connectivity at data rates up to 28Gbps. According to Adam Lindermann, Optical Product Director at Samtec, “The PLDA Gen4SWITCH showcases a deep collaboration between PLDA and Samtec to produce the first PCIe 4.0 interconnect. We are proud to provide Samtec’s 4x FIREFLY optical fibers to the project, which deliver throughput up to 6 GB/s and are key to enabling the Gen4SWITCH to connect downstream to the PCIe 4.0 x4 Endpoint DUT Board."

Learn More:
To learn more about the Gen4SWITCH, visit PLDA at PCI-SIG DevCon and view the complete Gen4SWITCH demo or Gen4SWITCH webpage on www.plda.com. PLDA is also offering opportunities for companies to test their own PCIe 4.0 board during the show. Please contact PLDA at sales@plda.com to make an appointment.

If you are not attending PCI-SIG DevCon, please visit PLDA’s website at www.plda.com or contact us at sales@plda.com to set up a time to demo or test the Gen4SWITCH solution.

About PLDA

PLDA has been successfully delivering PCI and PCI Express IP for more than 20 years. With over 6,200 licenses, PLDA has established a vast customer base and the world’s broadest PCIe ecosystem. PLDA has maintained its leadership over four generations of PCI Express specifications, enabling customers to reduce risk and accelerate time to market for their ASIC and FPGA based designs. PLDA provides a complete PCIe solution with its IP cores, FPGA boards for ASIC prototyping, PCIe BFM/testbench, PCIe drivers and APIs. PLDA is a global company with offices in North America (San Jose, California) and Europe (France, Italy, Bulgaria).

About Samtec

Founded in 1976, Samtec is a privately held, $626 million global manufacturer of a broad line of electronic interconnect solution blocks, including IC-to-Board/Ultra Micro, High Speed Board-to-Board, High Speed Cables, Future-Proof/Active Optics, Flexible Stacking, and Micro/Rugged components and cables. To meet the interconnect challenges of tomorrow and beyond, Samtec has developed unique Technology Centers to help optimize the entire signal transmission path… from the IC to the panel and beyond, and all points in between. For more information, visit them online at www.samtec.com.

About PCI-SIG

PCI-SIG is the consortium that owns and manages PCI specifications as open industry standards. The organization defines industry standard I/O (input/output) specifications consistent with the needs of its members. Currently, PCI-SIG is comprised of nearly 800 industry-leading member companies. To join PCI-SIG, and for a list of the Board of Directors, visit www.pcisig.com.