Version 1.2 2008
.
PEX 8505
Features
PEX 8505 General Features
o 5-lane PCI Express switch
- Gen 1 (2.5Gbps) Integrated
SerDes
o Up to five ports (x1, x2)
o 15mm x 15mm, 196-ball PBGA pkg.
o Typical Power: 0.8 Watts
PEX 8505 Key Features
o Standards Compliant
- PCI Express Base Specification, r1.1
- PCI Power Management Interface
Specification r1.2
o High Performance
- Cut-thru with low packet latency
- Max Payload Size of 1024 Bytes
- Non-blocking internal architecture
- Full line rate on all ports
o Flexible Configuration
- Five flexible & configurable ports
(x1, x2)
- Lane and polarity reversal
- Configurable with strapping pins,
EEPROM, I2C or Host software
o PCI Express Power Management
- Link power management states: L0,
L0s, L1, L2/L3 Ready and L3
- Device states: D0 and D3hot
o Quality of Service (QoS)
- One Virtual Channel per port
- Eight Traffic Classes per port
- Weighted Round-Robin Ingress Port
Arbitration
o Reliability, Availability,
Serviceability
- Three Standard Hot-Plug Controllers
supporting PCI SHPC spec r1.0
- Transaction layer end-to-end CRC
- Poison bit support
- Basic and Advanced Error Reporting
support
- Per port error diagnostics
• Bad DLLPs
• Bad TLPs
• CRC errors and more
- Fatal Error (FATAL_ERR#) signal
(legacy SERR equivalent)
- INTA# signal
- Port status bits
- Eight software controllable General
Purpose Output (GPO) signals
- JTAG boundary scan
Flexible & Versatile PCI Express® Switch
Low-Power 5-Lane, 5-Port ExpressLaneTM PCIe Switch
The PEX 8505 device offers PCI Express switching capability conforming to the
PCI Express Base specification revision 1.1. This device enables users to add
scalable high bandwidth, non-blocking interconnects at the lowest cost to a wide
variety of applications including communications platforms, consumer products,
servers, storage systems, blade servers, industrial systems and embedded-control
products. The PEX 8505 can be used as a fan-out, or peer-to-peer switch, and is
well-suited for Control Plane Applications, I/O Expansion, Video Surveillance,
Multi-Function Printers, DVRs, Industrial Control Systems, Medical Imaging
Systems, Embedded Systems and AMC modules.
Port Configurations
The PEX 8505 offers five lanes and up to five ports supporting x1 and x2 lane
widths. The PEX 8505 features a flexible central packet memory that allocates a
memory buffer for each port as required by the application or endpoint. This buffer
allocation along with the device's flexible packet flow control minimizes
bottlenecks when the upstream and aggregated downstream bandwidths do not
match.
High Performance
The PEX 8505 architecture supports packet cut-thru with low latency (138ns).
This, combined with large packet memory (up to 1024 byte maximum payload
size) and non-blocking internal switch architecture, provides full line rate on all
ports for performance hungry applications such as docking stations, control planes,
embedded systems and AMC modules.
End-to-End Packet Integrity
The PEX 8505 provides end-to-end CRC protection (ECRC) and Poison-bit
support to enable designs that require end-to-end data integrity. These features are
optional in the PCI Express specification, but PLX provides them across its entire
ExpressLane switch product line.
Configuration Flexibility
The PEX 8505 provides several ways to configure its operations. The device can be
configured through strapping pins, I2C interface, CPU configuration cycles, or an
optional serial EEPROM. This allows for easy debug during the development phase,
performance monitoring during the operation phase, and driver or software upgrade.
Interoperability
The PEX 8505 is designed to be fully compliant with the PCI-SIG PCI Express base
specification revision 1.1. Additionally, it supports auto-negotiation, lane reversal,
and polarity reversal. The PEX 8505 also undergoes thorough Interoperability
testing in PLX’s Interoperability Lab.
Low Power with Granular SerDes Control
The PEX 8505 provides low power capability that is fully compliant with the
PCI Express power management specification. For even lower power, the SerDes
physical links can be programmed for desired power or turned off when unused.
www.plxtech.com
Port Configurations
SerDes Power and Signal Management
The lane width of each port can be individually configured
through auto-negotiation, hardware strapping, host software
configuration, I2C interface, or through an optional EEPROM.
The ExpressLane PEX 8505 supports software control of the
SerDes outputs to allow optimization of power and signal
strength in a system. The PLX SerDes implementation
supports four levels of power – off, low, typical, and high. The
SerDes block also supports loop-back modes and advanced
reporting of error conditions, which enables efficient debug
and management of the entire system.
The PEX 8505 supports three port configurations:
1) One x1 upstream port and four x1 downstream ports
2) One x2 upstream port and three x1 downstream ports
3) One x2 upstream port, one x2 downstream port, one x1
downstream port
Port Arbitration
The PEX 8505 switch supports hardware fixed and Weighted
Round-Robin Ingress Port Arbitration. This allows fine
tuning of Quality of Service and efficient use of packet buffers
and the system bandwidth.
x1
Applications
PEX 8505
Suitable for control plane applications, multi-function
printers, DVRs, industrial control systems, medical
imaging systems, embedded systems & AMC modules, the
PEX 8505 can be configured for a wide variety of form factors
and applications.
x1 x1 x1 x1
Control Plane Application
x1
PEX 8505
The PEX 8505 is ideal for migrating existing PCI control
planes in routers to high-speed PCI Express interface to meet
increased packet processing needs. Figure 2 shows a controller
card with a PEX 8505 connecting the Control Processor to as
many as four devices each via a x1 port. This usage model
provides connectivity to multiple devices giving the processor
control over multiple devices in mid-range routers.
x2
PEX 8505
ASIC
x1 x1 x1
x2
FPGA
x1
FPGA
Figure 1. Port Configurations
PEX 8505
Hot-Plug for High Availability
Hot-Plug capability allows users to replace hardware modules
and perform maintenance without powering down the system.
The PEX 8505 Hot-Plug capability and Advanced Error
Reporting features make it suitable for High Availability
(HA) applications. Ports 1, 2 & 3 include a Standard HotPlug Controller. If the PEX 8505 is used in an application
where one or more of its downstream ports connect to PCI
Express slots, Hot-Plug Controllers on the three downstream
ports can be used to manage the hot plug event of its
associated slot.
Fully Compliant Power Management
For applications that require power management, the
ExpressLane PEX 8505 devices support both link (L0, L0s,
L1, L2/L3 Ready and L3) and device (D0 and D3hot) power
management states, in compliance with the PCI Express power
management specification.
Control
Processor
Memory
ASIC
Figure 2. Control Plane
I/O Expansion
The PEX 8505 can be used in I/O expansion applications.
Together with a PCI Express-to-PCI bridge, the PEX 8505 is
capable of providing legacy PCI I/O expansion support. Each
x1 port in the PEX 8505 provides 250MB/s bandwidth per
direction and it is more than capable of supporting the various
bus widths and bus speeds of legacy PCI. Please visit the
www.plxtech.com/bridges for additional information on
PLX’s PCI Express bridge family.
www.plxtech.com
Scanner
South
Bridge
PCIe Slot or
Cable
End Point
PEX 8505
x1
x1
PCI
Bus
VIA
17242
Stereo
CODEC
Proprietary
ASIC
Processor
PEX 8111
x1
PEX 8505
x1
PCIe Sound Card
x1
PCIe TV Tuner Card
CVBS
Philips
Hybrid
Tuner
IF
2IF
Conexant
CX23882
PCI
Bus
Ethernet
TS
Conexant
Demod
CX22702
Proprietary
ASIC
Marking Engine
PEX 8111
Figure 3. I/O Expansion
Figure 5. Printer Engine
Video Surveillance
A video surveillance application is another example for an
embedded application. When used together with a PEX 8311,
PCI Express-to-local bus bridges, the PEX 8505 can connect
to other embedded devices, such as FPGAs. This allows video
capture devices to interface to a PCI Express host taking
advantage of the PCI Express performance. For more
information on the PCI Express-to-Local Bus bridge, please
visit PLX’s website at www.plxtech.com/bridges.
CPU
Camera
Camera
JPEG
FIFO
FPGA
PEX 8311
Camera
.
.
Camera
Camera
PEX 8505
Control
Processor
FIFO
From a system model viewpoint, each PCI Express port is a
virtual PCI to PCI bridge device with its own set of PCI
Express configuration registers. It is through the upstream port
that the BIOS or host can configure the other ports using
standard PCI enumeration. The virtual PCI to PCI bridges
within the PEX 8505 are compliant to the PCI and PCI
Express system models. The Configuration Space Registers
(CSRs) in a virtual primary/secondary PCI to PCI Bridge are
accessible by type 0 configuration cycles through the virtual
primary bus interface (matching bus number, device number,
and function number).
Interrupt Sources/Events
The ExpressLane PEX 8505 switch supports the INTx
interrupt message type (compatible with the PCI 2.3 Interrupt
signals) or Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI) when enabled.
Interrupts/messages are generated by the PEX 8505 for hot
plug events, baseline error reporting, and advanced error
reporting.
CPU
JPEG
Software Usage Model
FPGA
PEX 8311
Camera
Figure 4. Video Surveillance
Printer Application
In a printer application, low power and low latency devices are
commonly used. Figure 5 shows an example of a printer
application. In this example, the low power processor used
provides a limited number of PCI Express ports. The
PEX 8505 can be used to provide four additional PCI Express
ports for the connectivity of other system peripherals such as
Ethernet as well any proprietary PCI Express based ASICs.
The Peer-to-Peer feature in the PEX 8505, allows a peripheral
connected on a downstream port the ability to transfer data
directly to another peripheral device. As shown in Figure 5,
the ASIC connected to the scanner side can transfer data
directly to the PCIe Slot and/or the ASIC connected on the
Marking Engine side resulting in a low latency data transfer.
In this case, the processor is not directly involved in the
transfer.
www.plxtech.com
Development Tools
PLX offers the PEX 8505RDK which includes hardware and
software tools to enable rapid customer design activity. These
tools consist of a hardware module, hardware documentation
and a Software Development Kit (SDK).
PEX 8505RDK
J
5
ExpressLane PEX 8505RDK
The RDK hardware includes three modules: the PEX 8505
base board, the Port Expander which provides four x1 ports,
and a PCI Express adapter board which provides connection to
the Host slot.
P
1
RDK Slot
PCIe x1 cable
connector
x1
ATX
x1
The PEX 8505RDK hardware module is configured as a
bench-top board to provide five ports. The adapter board
routes the PCI Express signals from the Host slot to a standard
(PCI SIG defined) PCI Express x1 cable connector. The
connection between the PEX 8505 and the host is made via the
x1 cable. The PEX 8505RDK can be used to test and validate
customer software. Additionally, it can be used as an
evaluation vehicle for the PEX 8505 features and benefits.
PEX 8505
Port Expander
x1
ATX
SDK
x1
The SDK tool set includes:
- Linux and Windows drivers
- C/C++ Source code, Objects, libraries
- User’s Guides, Application examples, Tutorials
PCIe x1 cable
connector
Cable Adapter Board
CPWRON#
Windows/Linux Apps
User
Space
PwdGd
CPERST#
PEX API
CREFCLK
RefClk
CPRSTN#
REFCLK
PERST#
Kernel
Space
Hardware
PCIe
Driver
NT PnP
Driver
PCI Express Interface
Figure 6. PEX 8505RDK
Product Ordering Information
PLX Technology, Inc.
870 W. Maude Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94085 USA
www.plxtech.com
Part Number
Description
PEX 8505-AA25BI
PEX 8505-AA25BI G
5-Lane, 5-port PCI Express Switch
5-Lane, 5-port PCI Express Switch Pb-Free
PEX 8505 Rapid Development Kit Base Board; x1 PCIe Cable;
x1 PCIe Cable Adapter and RDK Port Expander
PEX 8505-AA RDK Kit
Please visit the PLX Web site at http://www.plxtech.com/8505 or contact PLX sales at 408-774-9060 for sampling.
© 2008 PLX Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. PLX and the PLX logo are registered trademarks of PLX Technology, Inc. ExpressLane is a trademark of PLX Technology, Inc.,
which may be registered in some jurisdiction. All other product names that appear in this material are for identification purposes only and are acknowledged to be trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective companies. Information supplied by PLX is believed to be accurate and reliable, but PLX Technology, Inc. assumes no responsibility for
any errors that may appear in this material. PLX Technology, Inc. reserves the right, without notice, to make changes in product design or specification.
8505-SIL-PB-1.2
04/08
www.plxtech.com