CXL Protocol Adds Capabilities over PCIe

By Gary Hilson, EETimes (May 18, 2020)

The Compute Express Link (CXL) protocol is rapidly gaining traction in data centers. It’s an alternate protocol that runs across the standard PCI Express (PCIe). CXL uses a flexible processor port that can auto-negotiate to either the standard PCIe transaction protocol or the alternative CXL transaction protocols. The first generation of the protocol aligns to 32 Gbps PCIe Gen5.

High-performance computational workloads are stressing systems in new ways. System designers are re-thinking their architectures in response. Some of those response include the increasing use of persistent memory, the adoption of purpose-built processors and accelerators, and new approaches to computational storage. Another is CXL.

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