Back in 2022, when PCIe 7.0 was starting to take shape as a future standard, PCIe 5.0 was just hitting the server markets and the prospect of seeing PCIe 6.0 devices available any time soon, let alone PCIe 7.0 ones, was quite far-fetched. Currently PCIe 5.0 for the mainstream markets is only available for NVMe SSD solutions, with next gen RTX 5000 GPUs launching in Q4 this year or early next year finally getting the PCIe 5.0 treatment. Yet the AI and HPC markets are in constant need of ever increasing bandwidth requirements and it looks like the industry will essentially skip directly to PCIe 7.0 sooner than expected. Thanks to the latest advancements in optical interconnects, Synopsys is now ready to showcase the world’s first PCIe 7.0 complete IP solution, with expected availability in 2025.

The complete PCIe 7.0 IP from Synopsys includes a controller, IDE security model, PHY and additional verification IP. In order to address the increased bandwidth required by compute-intensive AI workloads involving large amounts of data from various trained models, Synopsys is providing the first PCIe 7.0 X16 solution with up to 512 GB bidirectional transfer speeds and 50% more power efficiency.

This technology will be demonstrated at the PCI-SIG Developers Conference held in Santa Clara, California, USA on June 12-13. The highlight of the demonstration is represented by the PCIe 7.0 PHY IP electrical-optical-electrical (E-O-E) TX to RX running at 128 Gb/s or the equivalent of a PCIe 7.0 monodirectional data lane out of the maximum 16 running on OpenLight’s Photonic IC. Synopsys also ensures seamless compatibility with CXL Controller IP solutions that have seen considerable adoption in the past few years.

While PCIe 7.0 could take off as early as next year for AI and HPC, the mainstream will most likely still stick to PCIe 5.0 for at least one more year, seeing that GPUs will only adopt this standard in late 2024 / early 2025.