The PCI SIG has officially delayed the release of the PCI Express 3.0 specification until the second quarter of 2010.
That will likely mean that products that are compliant with the new specification won't be released until 2011, Al Yanes, the president of the SIG confirmed.
Originally, the PCI Express 3.0 specification called for the spec itself to be released this year, with products due about a year after the spec's release, or in 2010.
The reason for the delay? The need to maintain backward compatibility with current PCI Express standards, such as the older PCI Express 1.0 specification and current PCI Express 2.0 products. "In this particular case, with pushing the technology so hard, and with PCI gen 3 providing so much more capabilities but with the need to be still backwards-compatible, we had to do the diligence required to move the date," Yanes said.
However, the delays are largely tied to verifying products in the lab. "The magic stuff has already happened; we're in execution mode," Yanes said.
The "magic," Yanes said, was in moving from 8-bit and 10-bit encoding schemes to 128-bit and 130-bit encoding. The challenge, he said, was to enable the proper encoding schemes at the three speeds used by the three PCI Express versions: 2.5-GHz, 5.0-GHz, and the new 8.0-GHz speed. The amount of verification required to satisfy those electrical models prompted the delays, to make sure that everything is "picture perfect," Yanes said.
While Yanes said that the member companies of the PCI SIG were happy with the group's decision, the companies most directly affected by it will be involved with graphics, which uses the highest throughput of all PCI Express devices, Yanes said.
أخبار: تأخير اطلاق PCI-E 3.0 الى 2011
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