By Kurt Lender, Marketing Work Group Co-Chair, PCI-SIG

As I look back on 2019, I’m proud to report that it has been a banner year for PCI-SIG®. This year we saw the progression of the PCI Express® (PCIe®) specification ecosystem, prioritized several education initiatives and promoted PCIe architecture around the world. Though it’s difficult to narrow the list down, my top eight 2019 milestones are below.

1. The PCI Express 4.0 specification entered official Compliance testing and is being adopted by industry-leading vendors. At this year’s PCI-SIG Compliance Workshop #110, our attendees participated in the first official PCIe 4.0 specification compliance tests and over 40 entries have been added to the PCIe 4.0 Integrators List. PCIe 4.0 technology reaches 16GT/s and products are entering a variety of market segments.
2. PCIe 5.0 Specification, Version 1.0 was released in May. The PCIe 5.0 specification was released in less than two years, delivering 32GT/s and increasing performance in high-performance markets. PCI-SIG is currently developing the compliance program for the PCIe 5.0 specification and the technology is currently making its way into the market thanks to PCI-SIG member companies.
3. The upcoming PCI Express 6.0 Specification was announced in June. Just three months after we announced the PCIe 6.0 specification at our U.S. Developers Conference, we released Revision 0.3. The PCIe 6.0 spec will reach 64GT/s transfer rates and is targeted for release in 2021.
4. PCI-SIG and DMTF established a working relationship to simplify hardware management. PCI-SIG will reference DMTF Redfish-based component authentication data objects to enable PCIe device and switch authentication, which is needed to address customer security requirements. This working relationship with DMTF will help PCI-SIG to increase security within different technologies.
5. We hosted five PCI-SIG Developers Conferences. The DevCon tour began in June 2019 at the PCI-SIG U.S. Developers Conference and featured a worldwide tour where we traveled to Israel, Europe and APAC. We also had a record 455 attendees at the Taipei DevCon, making it the largest PCI-SIG event in the region thus far. Additionally, we introduced a member product wall at the U.S. DevCon and hosted a face-to-face Marketing Work Group (MWG) meeting during the Taipei DevCon.
6. PCI-SIG members spoke at several industry events. At OCP Summit, PCI-SIG Vice President, Richard Solomon presented PCI Express Enabling Performance in HPC and participated on a panel discussing the OCP NIC 3.0 PCIe Electrical Compliance Test Fixture Update and Demo. PCI-SIG Board member, Debendra Das Sharma, shared “The New Generation of Storage: From PCI Express 4.0 to PCI Express 6.0” at Flash Memory Summit. Finally, PCI-SIG member Manmeet Walia explained how PCIe technology is being utilized by the SD Association at Embedded World.
7. We launched the PCI-SIG educational webinar series. The inaugural presentation of our webinar series, Retimers to the Rescue: PCI Express Specifications Reach Their Full Potential, aired on October 9 with presenters from Synopsys and Astera Labs and featured a live Q&A with the audience. Due to the positive feedback we received from our 423 live viewers, the webinar series will resume in early 2020.
8. Five new videos were added to the PCI-SIG Educational Video Series. At the U.S. DevCon event, PCIe technology experts and PCI-SIG members filmed a series of educational videos on a range of important topics like how PCIe specifications affect a variety of emerging markets such as AI and ML, IoT and automotive.

It’s hard to believe we managed to pack this much activity into one year. I’d like to extend my thanks to our members for contributing to the advancement of PCI-SIG and PCIe technology. I look forward to continuing this growth in 2020.

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