PCI Express Future

May 18, 2005 1 Replies

It seems like PCI Express has been granted the go ahead as the official replacement for PCI. I'm wondering what if anything the embedded world thinks of this?



Pro v. Con off the top of my head: + serial, less traces - serial, tighter signalling specs + hotplug - point to point



How will microcontrollers integrate PCI-express? PCI was a bus, you could just run the bus to all your peripherials. PCI-express is point to point though; how will embedded processors deal with this? Should we expect multiple point to point connections per processor, or expect to have to use a northbridge ala a normal computer?



Are there PCIe expander bridges which allow multiple PCIe devices to share a single point to point link?



It seems like PCIe could do a lot to simplify embedded design, particularly for cost & speed, but there's some missing levels I'm not seeing.



Thanks Myren


ASI-SIG stuff anyone? I hope the embedded realm has been involed with ASI-SIG devel some already....

Myren

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required