External PCI-E Standard Plan Officially Announces Challenge Thunderbolt

At the annual conference, the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI SIG) announced that it will develop an external device interconnect standard based on the PCI-E specification, directly compete with Intel's push Thunderbolt, and the USB-IF organization's USB 3.0.

External PCI-E will be based on a new generation of PCI-E 3.0 technology, supporting four-channel transmission, which is equivalent to PCI-E 3.0 x4, with a maximum bandwidth of 32Gbps (or 32GT/s). The technology used copper wire initially, but as the speed increases and the future PCI-E 4.0 is released, it is possible to eventually switch to fiber, at which point the bandwidth will at least double to 64 Gbps.

Obviously, this is clearly directed at Intel Thunderbolt. The latter is also the current use of copper wire, with a bandwidth of 10Gbps, and later into fiber, the bandwidth is expected to increase to 100Gbps.

Unfortunately, the external PCI-E can provide no more than 20W of power, which means it is more suitable for solid-state hard drives, U-disks, memory cards, and other large-capacity storage devices, as well as cameras and the like. The graphics card must be connected to an auxiliary power supply, but the PCI SIG declined to comment on the actual use of the external PCI-E.

The external PCI-E standard working group has been established and put into operation, but it is not expected to be completed until June 2013, with the fastest of 9 months and the slowest 18 months. Although many developers within the PCI SIG have started researching external PCI-E technology a few years ago, it has to be a step by step to form a standard specification. In particular, the technical requirements and new interfaces need to be defined in detail.

Compared to Intel Thunderbolt, the most attractive aspect of the PCI-E specification is its openness. Nathan Brookwood, a senior analyst at market research firm Insight64, pointed out: "The biggest problem now is the closure technology and the industry standards. I don't know whether a third-party group can access Thunderbolt from the basic level like PCI-E."

Al Yanes, chairman of the PCI SIG, said: "This will help find new business opportunities with PCI-E. Now we have seen the needs of our members (for external PCI-E).... Now there are similar plans in the industry. For example, Thunderbolt is one of them. There are other companies that are doing related work."