AMD, HP script extensions for PCI Express 3.0

SAN JOSE, USA: Aimed at enabling lower cost chips that might support multiple protocols and reduce processor overhead, chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Hewlett-Packard have written two extensions to the PCI Express 3.0 specification.

The two companies are said to be hoping at getting the extensions accepted as part of the draft PCIe 3.0 spec, which will be published during early 2010.

According to an EE Times report, the two extensions are independent of each other and have applications in graphics, high-speed I/O and embedded systems. Both require some changes to silicon and software. The companies would put into play a protocol multiplexing extension that would let chips dynamically switch between as many as seven different protocols in addition to PCIe.

The report added that this will be effected using a shared set of chip pins, buffers and board traces. It pointed out that the resulting chips could use fewer pins, and OEMs would need fewer devices and could make more flexible systems.

The report has also pointed out that chip makers, using this particular technique, will be able to design a single part that connects processors and accelerators via PCIe, Intel's Quick Path Interconnect or the coherent HyperTransport bus.

Meanwhile, the lightweight notification, yet another technique, would allow co-processors or peripheral chips to talk to each other through system memory using a PCIe transaction without interrupting a host processor, it added.