14 DAY TRIAL // The PCI Special Interest Group (SIG) has recently announced that the release of the specifications for the PCI Express 3.0 interface will be delayed until the second quarter of 2010. The delay is reportedly related to issues that have been encountered with enabling backward compatibility on the new interface. PCI Express 3.0 was expected to be released later this year, but it now appears that users will have to wait a while longer until the first supporting products will make their way on the market.
According to the group's CEO, the PCI Express 3.0 specifications won't be available until sometime in Q2 2010, with the very first supporting products expected in 2011. “In this particular case, with pushing the technology so hard, and with PCI gen 3 providing so much more capabilities but with the need to be still backwards-compatible, we had to do the diligence required to move the date,” Al Yanes, president at PCI SIG, said.
The much-anticipated standard will enable speeds of up to 8.0Gbps, compared to the 2.5Gbps and the 5Gbps that are available on the previous versions of the interface. The new standard will also see the move from 8-bit and 10-bit encoding to 128-bit and 130-bit encoding, according to Al Yanes. The delay, which is largely due to the backward compatibility issues that have been encountered with the development of the interface, will see the group validating the specifications and products in the lab. “The magic stuff has already happened; we're in execution mode,” Yanes said.
The graphics segment is the most affected by the decision, as graphics cards are known for using the highest throughput of all PCI Express devices. However, Yanes explained that companies that were part of SIG had agreed with the group's decision. As far as the users are concerned, the reality of PCI Express 3.0 will be noticeable in 2011.