Montage Technology has announced a PCIe 6.x and Compute Express Link (CXL) 3.x-based Active Electrical Cable (AEC) solution for data centers moving from intra-rack to inter-rack connectivity. The company says the AEC uses its PCIe 6.x and CXL 3.x Retimer to deliver high-bandwidth, low-latency links aimed at hyperscalers and high-performance server platforms.

Montage frames the product around distributed, multi-rack architectures driven by artificial intelligence and cloud computing growth. It positions PCI Express (PCIe) as the core interconnect linking CPUs, GPUs, network interface cards (NICs), and high-speed storage, expanding from rack servers to “supernode” architectures. Montage says copper connections using AECs are used to maintain signal integrity over longer reaches as PCIe connectivity extends beyond a single rack.

For hardware implementation, Montage says the AEC solution uses its in-house serializer deserializer (SerDes) technology and a digital signal processing (DSP) architecture, packaged in a high-density OSFP-XD form factor. The company says the design supports stable PCIe x16 connectivity, adds link monitoring and diagnostic features for maintainability, and offers configuration flexibility to match different hyperscaler topology requirements.

Montage reports it has completed development and system-level validation, and that the AEC was jointly designed with cable manufacturers in China. The company says the solution has passed interoperability tests with CPUs, xPUs, PCIe switches, NICs, and other devices, targeting PCIe interconnect requirements associated with supernode architectures.

Montage also notes it plans to expand its high-speed interconnect portfolio with a PCIe 7.0 Retimer and an Ethernet physical layer (PHY) Retimer.

Source: Montage Technology