Broadcom Extends PCIe Industry Leadership with End-to-End Gen 6 Portfolio for AI Infrastructure

Broadcom Inc. announced availability of its end-to-end PCIe Gen 6 portfolio.

The company has further extended its multi-generational PCIe leadership by allowing early access to its PCIe Gen 6 Interop Development Platform (IDP), which simplifies interoperability and system design with its advanced telemetry and diagnostics capabilities. The firm, in collaboration with Micron Technology, Inc. and Teledyne LeCroy, Inc., also successfully tested its high-port switch and retimer for interoperability and compliance enablement to empower open AI infrastructure solutions.

“Broadcom’s commitment to the open ecosystem has strengthened over six generations and we are now pleased to offer our new PCIe Gen 6 products to early access customers,” said Jas Tremblay, VP and GM, data center solutions group, Broadcom. “The transition from PCIe Gen 5 to Gen 6 has been monumental given the accelerated need for trusted and reliable building blocks in next-gen AI systems. Broadcom’s PCIe Gen 6 switch, retimer and IDP will empower our partners to successfully deploy open, scalable AI clusters.”

“PCIe 6 switches and retimers are critical high-performance building blocks required to power advanced AI solutions. The standards-based approach, if ably complemented by nifty architecture and seamless interoperability, paves the way for open, scalable AI infrastructure,” said Patrick Moorhead, founder, CEO, and chief analyst, Moor Insights & Strategy. “Broadcom is showing that it is leading the transition from PCIe 5 to PCIe 6 at scale with its unique approach of making its interoperability development platform available early and working with leading ecosystem partners to deliver a robust, thoroughly tested, compliant PCIe 6 portfolio.”

The AI industry, including hyperscalers and system ODM/OEMs, is now designing next-gen AI rack solutions based on the Broadcom PCIe Gen 6 connectivity portfolio. The company’s connectivity portfolio utilizes its in-house SerDes, which is also used in custom XPUs. Additionally, the design features include extended reach, lower power dissipation, and simplified interop and end-to-end management. Together, this ensures that the open AI infrastructure ecosystem is powered by scalable and power efficient interconnect solutions.

By collaborating with PCIe industry leaders like Micron and Teledyne LeCroy for early enablement and testing, Broadcom assures customers of fully validated PCIe Gen 6 building blocks to meet the rigorous demands of AI platforms and workloads.

• Broadcom and Teledyne LeCroy have joined forces to provide the AI infrastructure ecosystem with a solid, reliable base for PCIe testing. Their deep collaboration and commitment has resulted in the enablement of compliance testing across a cutting-edge PCIe portfolio featuring their robust protocol analyzer/exerciser and PCIe switch.
• Micron is the 1st to develop PCIe Gen 6 NVMe SSD technology for ecosystem enablement. To advance this effort, the company collaborated with Broadcom and Teledyne LeCroy by providing an ultra-high-performance storage solution for testing. The tests validated functionality for a Gen 6 ecosystem comprised of switches, retimers, NVMe SSDs and protocol analyzers.
• At the PCI-SIG Developers Conference, all 3 companies successfully demonstrated PCIe 6.x interoperability and early compliance tests on their Gen 6 solutions marking a significant milestone as key PCIe Gen 6 ecosystem enablers become equipped to power AI innovations.

Industry quotes:
Jeremy Werner, SVP and GM, storage business, Micron, said : “Micron leads the industry with the first high-performance PCIe Gen 6 NVMe SSD. Combined with Broadcom’s high-port switch, our SSDs serve as a critical building block for PCIe Gen 6 AI storage. Our successful interoperability testing with Broadcom and Teledyne LeCroy is evidence of the industry’s rapid transition towards a robust end-to-end PCIe Gen 6 portfolio capable of taking AI performance to the next level.”

Joe Mendolia, VP, marketing, protocol solutions Group, Teledyne LeCroy, said : “Teledyne LeCroy is proud that our early collaboration with Broadcom, leveraging our Summit M616 and M64 Protocol Analyzers and Exercisers and Broadcom’s PCIe switch portfolio, has led to the industry’s first PCIe 6.x interoperability and compliance testing development. Early access to cutting-edge technologies like the Broadcom PCIe Gen 6 IDP has enabled us to ensure that our Protocol Analyzers and Exercisers meet the evolving demands of today’s PCIe developers.”