PCI-SIG Announces Final Specifications for PCI-E 6.0

PCI-SIG announced version 0.9 of the PCI-E 6.0 specification, which contains its final specifications and only needs formal approval to reach version 1.0. In this way, manufacturers can begin to work on their first products that use the technology since no further changes should be made, with the sole exception of finding a serious error that requires changing some detail.

PCI-E 6.0 will double the speed compared to the not yet released PCI-E 5.0, and for this it will resort for the first time to the PAM4 modulation system, which thanks to its four signal levels allows to represent two bits per clock pulse instead of one alone, doubling the amount of data that can be sent. Obviously, this high-speed signal will require a perfectly clean and noise-free channel to function correctly, so it will be necessary to comply with several measures of care to be able to use this technology without problem.

Version 1.0 of PCI-E 6.0 is expected to be announced in early 2022 and the first products to use this technology arrive in late 2023 or early 2024.

What do you think about the very early arrival of PCI-E 6.0? Do you think it will be necessary to double the bandwidth just two years after the arrival of PCI-E 5.0?