PCI-SIG Releases Version 0.5 of PCI-e 6.0 Specification

The organization behind the pci-e standard has released version 0.5 of pci-e 6.0. The new standard doubles the maximum bandwidth compared to PCI-e 5.0 to 64GT/s. PCI-SIG states that the final specification of PCI-e 6.0 will be released in 2021.

Version 0.5 is the first draft of the pci-e 6.0 specification, PCI-SIG reports. This version contains the most important aspects of the architecture. In addition, the organization has included the ‘many feedback’ from partners in the design. PCI-SIG states that the organization is still on track to release the final specification in 2021.

PCI-SIG partners can begin designing test products based on PCI-e 6.0 with the release of version 0.5, Anandtech writes. Partners may also provide further feedback based on version 0.5 of the new standard. These suggestions will still be processed in version 0.7, after which PCI-SIG will no longer accept new suggestions. The PCI-SIG Developers Conference 2020 will be held in June. The organization will provide more details about the future of pci-e during this conference.

It is expected that it will be years before pci-e 6.0 becomes available to consumers. The PCI-e 4.0 specification was finalized in 2017, but the first consumer products based on this standard did not appear on the market until 2019. PCI-e 5.0 was completed last year, but is not yet used in consumer products.

PCI-SIG announced PCI-e 6.0 in 2019, shortly after the organization finalized specifications of the PCI-e 5.0 standard. PCI-e 6.0 offers, among other things, a doubled data rate compared to PCI-e 5.0 to 64GT/s. This equates to a full duplex speed of up to 256GB/s. This is possible, among other things, because PCI-SIG no longer uses the Non-Return-to-Zero technique. Instead, pci-e uses 6.0 Pulse-Amplitude 4, which doubles the transmission bandwidth per Hz over NRZ. Also, Forward Error Correction has been added to the specification.