Product Brief

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TunneledWindow Connection (TWC)

The DMA or TWC approaches are two ways hosts can communicate. TWC allows short messages to

be sent from one host to another in a very low latency manner, and without the overhead associated

with DMA.

Downstream Port Containment (DPC/eDPC)

Most servers have difficulty handling serious errors, especially when a PCIe end-point disappears

from the system. DPC/eDPC allows a downstream link to be disabled after an uncorrectable error,

making recovery possible in a controlled and robust manner.

FlexibleTopologies

PEX9700 switches eliminate the topology restrictions of PCIe. The switch allows other topologies

such as mesh, I/O Expansion Box with Multiple Hosts, and many others. And it does this while

allowing the components to remain architecturally and software compatible with standard PCIe.

Improved SSC Isolation

The switches offer several mechanisms for supporting multi-clock domains that include spread

spectrum clocking; eliminating the need to pass a common clock across a backplane. In addition to

the standard Avago approach to the problem, a new PCI-SIG approach called SRIS (Separate Refclk

Independent SSC Architecture) is now available.

Applications

Products based on ExpressFabric technology can help deliver an outstanding solution for designing

a heterogeneous system with a requirement for a flexible mix of processors, storage elements, and

communication devices.

HPC Clusters

HPC clusters are made up of high-performance processing elements that communicate through

high bandwidth, low latency pathways in order to execute applications such as medical imaging,

financial trading, data warehousing, etc. PEX9700 switches can be used in switch fabric applications

for HPC clustering. The processing subsystems can be connected to the PCIe fabric while running

the same application software. PCIe switch based clustering eliminates expensive protocol bridging

devices resulting in lower cost and power. And clustering systems can be built with I/O sharing as

an additional native capability when needed.

Software Development Kit (SDK)

The SDK for the PEX9700 series includes drivers, source code and GUI interfaces to aid in configuring

and debugging. Both the performancePAK™ and visionPAK™ are exclusive to Avago and are

supported by its RDK and SDK, which are the industry’s most advanced hardware-and software

development kits.

performancePAK

The performancePAK is a suite of unique and innovative performance features that allows Avago

Gen 3 switches to be the highest performing switches in the market today.

visionPAK

The visionPAK is a debug diagnostics suite of integrated hardware and software instruments that

allows users to help bring their systems to market faster.

Key Advantages (continued)

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Quality of Service (QoS)

– 8 Traffic Classes (TC) supported

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Reliability, Availability, Serviceability

– visionPAK™

– performance PAK™

– DPC/eDPC Support

– Read Tracking for surprise removal

– All ports Hot-Plug capable thru

I2C –SSC isolation on all ports

– SRIS support

– ECRC and Poison bit support

– Port Status bits and GPIO available