US 2022/0066976 A1 · PCI Express to PCI Express based low latency interconnect scheme for clustering systems

Abstract

PCI-Express (PCIE) is a Bus or I/O interconnect standard typically used for communication between a computer or computing system root complex and a plurality of peripheral devices, where the PCIE system typically include a PCIE switch which has only a single inbound PCIE port. An outbound PCIE port on the computing system connects to the single inbound PCIE port of the PCIE switch. The invention discloses a PCIE based interconnect scheme enabling switching and inter-connection between a plurality of PCIE enabled systems, each having a PCIE root complex forming a cluster. The technical advances and scalability of PCIE architecture can be applied to enable data transport between the systems forming the cluster. The PCIE network switch comprise a plurality of inbound ports such that each of the plurality of computing systems connects to an inbound port of the network switch for enabling data transmission and communication within the cluster.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A PCI-Express switch device for transferring information between at least first and second PCI-Express enabled computing systems, wherein each of the PCI-Express enabled computing systems comprise a PCI-Express bus system that is under control of a PCI-Express root complex, the PCI-Express switch device comprising:

a plurality of inbound PCI-Express ports, wherein at least first and second inbound PCI-Express ports of the plurality of inbound PCI-Express ports are configured for sending and receiving data and network packets in communication with an outbound PCI-Express port on each of the first and second PCI-Express enabled computing systems respectively.

A PCI-Express switch device for transferring data between at least first and second PCI-Express enabled computing systems, the PCI-Express switch device comprising:

a plurality of inbound PCI-Express ports that enable transferring data from at least the first PCI-Express enabled computing system to at least the second PCI-Express enabled computing system using PCI-Express protocol, wherein each of the PCI-Express enabled computing systems comprise a PCI-Express bus under control of a root complex, wherein:
a) a first inbound PCI-Express port on the PCI-Express switch device is configurable to receive a first data packet from an outbound PCI-Express port on the first PCI-Express enabled computing system ,;
b) the PCI-Express switch device transfers the first data packet from the first inbound PCI-Express port on the PCI-Express switch to a second inbound PCI-Express port on the PCI-Express switch;
and
c) the second inbound PCI-Express port on the PCI-Express switch device is configurable to transfer the first data packet from the second inbound PCI-Express port on the PCI-Express switch device to an outbound PCI-Express port on the second PCI-Express enabled computing system.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

PCI Express to PCI Express based low latency interconnect scheme for clustering systems

Life of this patent

PCI Express to PCI Express based low latency interconnect scheme for clustering systems

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims18