PCI-SIG is the organization behind the widely used PCI Express standard celebrates 20 years. To celebrate the company shared some information on what is under development, including PCI Express 4.0 and OCuLink that can be described as PCI Express in a cable.

The stanard organ PCI-SIG has been around for 20 years and the specification PCI (Peripheral Component Interface) Express has been under continous development for about 10 years time. PCI Express has since its introduction been broadened to new formfactors besides the regular expansion port we find on the majority of motherboards today.

PCI Express 4.0 is in development and will double the bandwidth from 8 to 16 gigatransfers per second. Besides being designed for a higher bandwidth it allows developers to implement more units with less lanes and the same bandwidth as the current PCI Express 3.0. It mentions specifically that the new standard will come to biggest use for SSD units for both business and client applications, but also for future graphics cards.

The new formfactor PCI Express OCuLink takes the standard to a cable format. OCuLink is designed to offer a bandwidth of 8 gigabit per second in both directions, but will scale up to 32 gigabit per second with four PCI Express lanes. OCuLink is mainly intended for external use, e.g. connecting storage units and graphics cards, but will also work as an internal solution if necessary.

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