Switch enables complex fabric topologies with greater scalability

To support cloud, data centre and hyperscale computing that facilitates advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), Microchip Technology releases to production its Switchtec PAX Advanced Fabric Gen 4 PCIe switch family. These enable complex fabric topologies with greater scalability, lower latency, and higher performance than traditional Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) switches. 

Microchip’s Switchtec PAX PCIe family of switches provides a turnkey fabric solution and reduces time-to-market for systems requiring multi-host sharing of Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) Non-Volatile Memory (NVMe) Solid State Drives (SSDs), Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and other PCIe endpoints.  

The Switchtec PAX devices are the industry’s lowest-power Gen 4 PCIe switches, significantly reducing total system power consumption.

The Switchtec PAX family of switches is available in the following variants: 100-lane, 84-lane, 68-lane, 52-lane, 36-lane and 28-lane. Other PAX family of switches features include:

• Advanced error containment 
• Comprehensive diagnostics and debug capabilities 
• Wide breadth of I/O interfaces 
• Integrated MIPS processor

Secure boot to prevent execution of unauthorised firmware through public key cryptography.

Applications include GPU workstations, composable General Purpose GPUs (GP-GPU) fabrics, scalable multi-host systems, SR-IOV-enabled JBOFs, disaggregated systems and rack-scale architectures.