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Are you ready for your PC to communicate by light? Don’t hold your breath, because while it sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, the PCI Express Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) has just put a very real possibility on the table. Yes, it’s true—they’re actually working on making optical interconnections a reality for future PCI Express communication. But let’s not kid ourselves; this isn’t just around the corner.
PCI Express developments and what they mean
It was a bustling day for the PCI-SIG as they announced the final version of PCI Express 7.0 while also teasing the upcoming PCI Express 8.0. Meanwhile, products based on PCI Express 6.0 are expected to hit the market this year, so it’s not all doom and gloom. But if you’re thinking about upgrading your tech, it might be wise to hold off. Compliance testing for PCIe 7.0 won’t even start until 2027, with products likely to roll out in 2028. So, if you’re looking to ride the wave of technological innovation, you’ll have to be patient.
Understanding PCIe 7.0
Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty. PCIe 7.0 is designed to transfer data bidirectionally at a whopping 128 gigatransfers per second. Hold on, did you catch that? That’s without any encoding overhead, using the same PAM4 signaling as PCIe 6.0. The total bandwidth across an x16 link is a staggering 256GB/s. Talk about speed! But let’s be real here: what good is all that bandwidth if it takes years to actually implement it?
Looking ahead to PCIe 8.0
The SIG has yet to spill the beans about PCIe 8.0, but if you think about it, we’ve come a long way since the 8 gigatransfers/s of PCI 3.0. If we’re following the trend, we could be looking at a target of 256GT/s, which would mark a milestone as the first terabyte connection (1.024TB/s) in PCI Express history. But don’t start celebrating just yet—these advancements take a lifetime to migrate into the real world.
Silicon photonics: The next frontier
Speaking of which, let’s talk about silicon photonics. This technology, where electricity interfaces with light, is on the cutting edge but takes even longer to develop. The other specification announced today is the Optical Aware Retimer Engineering Change Notice. This is a big deal—it’s amending PCIe 6.4 and 7.0 to include a standardized way to implement PCIe technology over optical fiber, particularly for AI, cloud, and data center applications. But honestly, how many of us are really going to benefit from this in our day-to-day lives?
Current landscape of electrical connections
For now, electrical connections dominate the computing landscape. Intel has been dabbling in silicon photonics for over a decade, while AMD jumped on board by acquiring Enosemi to develop photonics solutions across next-gen AI systems. Those moves hint at a future where optical connections become commonplace, but let’s not kid ourselves—this is still a long way off.
Final thoughts
So here we are, teetering on the edge of a technological breakthrough that promises to change the way we communicate data. But is it really going to happen anytime soon? Or are we just going to sit around waiting for the next big thing to roll out while our current tech continues to lag behind? The future of PCI Express is bright, but until those optical connections become a reality, we’ll have to make do with the old reliable—electrical connections that rule our computing world today.