OCP Global Summit: Phison Introduced High-Speed Signal Conditioner IC, Expanding PCIe 5.0 Ecosystem for AI-Era Data Centers

Phison Electronics Corp.expanded its portfolio of PCIe 5.0 high-speed transmission solutions with PCIe 5.0, CXL 2.0 compatible redriver and retimer data signal conditioning IC products.

Leveraging the company’s expertise in PCIe engineering, the firm is one only signal conditioners provider that offers the widest portfolio of multi-channel PCIe 5.0 redriver and retimer solutions and PCIe 5.0 storage solutions designed to meet the data infrastructure demands of (AI+ML), edge computing, HPC, and other data-intensive, next-gen applications.

At the 2023 Open Compute Project Global Summit, the company’s team showcased its PCIe 5.0 portfolio, demonstrating the redriver and retimer technologies alongside other enterprise NAND flash, illustrating a holistic vision for a PCIe 5.0 data ecosystem to address the most demanding applications of the AI-everywhere era.

“Phison has focused industry-leading R&D efforts on developing in-house, chip-to-chip communication technologies since the introduction of the PCIe 3.0 protocol, with PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 5.0 solutions now in mass production, and PCIe 6.0 solutions now in the design phase,” said Michael Wu, president and GM, Phison US. “Phison’s accumulated experience in high-speed signaling enables our team to deliver retimer and redriver design solutions that are optimized for top signal integration, low power usage, and high temperature endurance, to deliver interface speeds for the most challenging compute environments.”

PCIe 5.0 Retimers PS7201 and PS7202

Emerging high-speed interconnect protocols like PCIe 5.0 and CXL 2.0 are driving the need for a new-gen of signal conditioning solutions. The company‘s PS7201 and PS7202 retimer solutions are designed to meet the growing demand for data performance, and follow industry standard retimer footprints. The firm’s retimer solutions also offer features such as:

Advanced signal enhancement for all PCIe-deployed devices, including NAND flash, GPU, CPU, FPGA, ASIC, DPU, and other accelerator technologies
High EQ boosting range up to 42dB
Integrated AC coupling capacitors
CXL 2.0 compatibility
Low latency of 5ns
Hot plug and bifurcation support
Pin-to-pin compatibility with competing solutions
Protocol awareness accommodates various system configurations, suitable for a wide range of industries and applications
The Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) delivers user-friendly diagnostic tool and standard C-SDK to support real-time monitoring for local and remote management and provide users with the utmost confidence in their system’s performance

PCIe 5.0 Redrivers PS7102 and PS7103 with PHiTUNE software

All of the company’s Redriver solutions are certified by PCI-SIG, the consortium that owns and manages PCI specs as open industry standards.

In addition to the firm’s redriver solutions, Phison is a provider of a full line of multi-lane redrivers, including:

Advanced signal enhancement for all PCIe-deployed devices
Up to 28.5dB equalization range
Low latency of 70ps
CXL 2.0 compatibility
PS7101 2-lane redriver, with Mux/Demux capabilities
PS7102 8-channel redriver
PS7103 16-lane redriver
Pin to pin compatibility with competing solutions

Leveraging the company’s expertise and IP in both PCIe 5.0 signal conditioning and end device PCIe 5.0 NAND flash solutions, the company is an only provider in the industry to offer its auto tuning tool PHiTUNE for its redrivers. Pairing the firm’s PHiTUNE software with the E26 PCIe Gen5 SSD, the company’s redriver solutions automatically detect recovery counts. The software then uses AI to determine the optimal gain parameters to be stored in the Redriver’s onboard non-volatile memory in the customer’s R&D environment. This tool enables R&D engineers to collect signal data and conduct signal optimization to find the best parameters for the corresponding environment automatically in about 30mn.

Other features delivered by Phison redrivers include:

Support for unique I2C modes of operation enables system R&D engineers to independently tune parameters depending on hi/low frequency for different cable or PCB materials to achieve the best compensation for signal attenuation (PS7102 and PS7103)
Support for linearity up to 1,200mVpp, allowing for more accurate signal transmission and reception than competing products
Phison’s linear swing feature for its redriver solutions reduces waveform disturbances and improves overall signal quality
EQ boosting range up to 28.5dB to provide improved signal extension capabilities in comparison to competing solutions

Partners converge to provide holistic AI infrastructure
Already in deployment in both Intel- and AMD-based platforms, Phison partners and customers are expressing excitement about the firm’s PCIe retimer and redriver signal integrity solutions as part of the company’s wider PCIe 5.0 data ecosystem.

“Thanks to Phison for providing the exclusive PHiTUNE tool, which enables us to quickly deploy and integrate ASRock Rack motherboards with the Phison PS7101 Redriver IC, ensuring stability and integrity in high-speed signal transmission,” said Weishi Sa, president, ASRock Rack. “ASRock Rack has always been committed to providing high-performance and reliable server and workstation systems as well as motherboards. We are delighted that Phison’s Redriver IC contributes to achieving this goal in collaboration with ASRock Rack. We look forward to further cooperation between our two companies in the future.”

“Phison’s PCIe 5.0 Redriver IC PS7101 is an exciting high-speed transmission innovation,” said Daniel Hou, CEO, Giga Computing. “It provides servers with more flexible parameters to solve the signal attenuation problem, enabling Giga Computing to offer users a versatile server capable of handling various computational workloads. Through Phison’s PHiTUNE tool, we can quickly enhance the support of Gigabyte’s servers for different PCIe 5.0 components, meeting the requirements for seamless signal transmission and accelerating the launch of our server products. In the future, we also look forward to continued partnership between Giga Computing and Phison.”

Resource :
OCP Powering the Gen5 Data Center Ecosystem