Microsemi: Interoperability Validation Between Switchtec PAX Advanced Fabric Gen3 PCIe Switch and Samsung PM1725a Virtualization (SR-IOV) Drive

Microsemi Corporation announced the interoperability validation between its Switchtec PAX advanced fabric Gen3 PCIe switch and Samsung Electronics’ PM1725a virtualization (SR-IOV) drive, enabling development of SR-IOV-capable NVMe drives with an advanced fabric switch.

This collaboration between the company and Samsung allows storage customers in the data center and enterprise markets to virtualize end points, optimize performance and reduce costs.

“Extensive interoperability testing between Samsung and Microsemi attests to the success of a far-reaching collaboration, through which we are able to bring to market the first validated SR-IOV-capable NVMe drives with an advanced fabric switch,” said Pete Hazen, VP and business unit manager, data center storage solutions, Microsemi. “As hyperconverged systems are evolving toward composable and disaggregated infrastructures, such as rack scale design, our jointly developed technology solution helps customers meet the rapidly changing demands for increased resources and the greater storage capacity associated with next-generation applications.“

The companies’ combined storage solution of the Switchtec PCIe fabric and SR-IOV enabled SSDs enables system builders and hyperscale data center operators to dynamically optimize the storage subsystem to efficiently meet the changing workloads placed upon them. The collaboration offers low latency and a cost-effective solution to the disaggregation of computing and storage resources.

“With enterprise and cloud storage requirements evolving rapidly, we will see many data centers and enterprises optimizing their storage resources using enhanced solutions and technologies,” said Jim Elliott, senior corporate VP, memory sales and marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. “By combining an array of our leading SSD technology with Microsemi’s, we will be able to deliver NVMe drives and system solutions with higher density and performance for advanced fabric PCIe switches, allowing customers to virtualize their storage drives in the same way they have already virtualized server usage.“

In virtualization, the SR-IOV specification allows the isolation of PCIe resources for manageability and performance. SR-IOV offers a variety of virtual functions for most components on a physical server machine, and allows a number of VMs to share a single PCIe hardware interface. This reduces time to market and storage costs, and simplifies system development.

SR-IOV is part of composable/disaggregated market
According to market research firm IDC’s February report titled, Composable/Disaggregated Infrastructure (C/DI)-Addressable Market Opportunity, the total worldwide addressable opportunity for vendors with C/DI was $34.5 billion in 2017. The firm expects this opportunity will grow at a CAGR  of 7.4% to reach $45 billion in 2020. The company’s Switchtec PAX advanced fabric PCIe switch is aligned with these growth trends, so data centers can leverage the device for the development of next-generation C/DIs.

Additional features
Switchtec PAX family includes switches from 24 lanes to 96 lanes, providing:

• Software development kit (SDK) for virtualization of other SR-IOV endpoints, and for enclosure management

• High port density, with up to 48 ports

• Error containment for surprise-plug and unplug to prevent system crashes

• Diagnostics and debug features to identify, diagnose and fix problems

• Separate Refclk Independent SSC (SRIS) for cabled PCIe and lower cost system designs

Collaboration with Samsung Enabled by Microsemi’s Accelerate Ecosystem
Samsung’s collaboration with the company is part of the firm’s Accelerate Ecosystem. The ecosystem facilitates collaboration between Microsemi and firms in the semiconductor integrated circuit (IC), intellectual property (IP), systems, software, tools and design spaces to integrate, test and deliver pre-validated designs and system-level solutions for end customers in the company’s key vertical markets-aerospace and defense, data center, communications and industrial. The Accelerate Ecosystem is designed to reduce time-to-market for end customers and time-to-revenue for Microsemi and ecosystem members via technology alignment, joint marketing and sales acceleration.

Switchtec PAX advanced fabric PCIe switches are sampling.