Marvell Expands Connectivity Portfolio With New PCIe Retimer Product Line to Scale Compute Fabrics of Accelerated Infrastructure
Marvell Technology has launched the Alaska P PCIe retimer product line, designed to enhance connections between AI accelerators, GPUs, CPUs, and other server components. These products are built on Marvell's 5nm PAM4 technology and feature the industry's lowest power consumption for PCIe Gen 6 retimers. This new line aims to address the growing needs for higher bandwidth and faster data rates in AI and ML applications, which have been driving the requirement for advanced connectivity solutions.
The Alaska P PCIe retimers come in 8- and 16-lane configurations and can compensate for significant signal loss, ensuring reliable communication over longer distances within servers. These retimers support various server architectures, including AI accelerator baseboards and riser cards, and can be integrated into both copper and optical connections. The launch of these products positions Marvell as a key player in the evolving market for compute fabrics, leveraging its extensive experience in PAM4 technology.
- Marvell launched the Alaska P PCIe retimer product line, enhancing AI, GPU, and CPU connections.
- The new retimers are built on 5nm PAM4 technology, featuring the industry's lowest power consumption for PCIe Gen 6.
- The products are available in 8- and 16-lane configurations, compensating for 40dB channel loss, exceeding the 32dB spec for PCIe 6.
- Marvell's extensive experience in PAM4 technology positions it well in the compute fabrics market.
- The retimers support various server configurations and can be integrated into both copper and optical connections.
- Sampling of the 16-lane retimer has begun, with the 8-lane version to follow next quarter.
- The higher bandwidth and faster data rates of PCIe Gen 6 limit the physical reach of signals, necessitating the use of retimers.
- The need for advanced connectivity solutions indicates that existing infrastructure may not support future AI and ML workloads without upgrades.
Insights
Marvell Technology's expansion of its connectivity portfolio with the new Alaska P PCIe retimer product line is highly relevant for the tech industry. This latest product addresses the increasingly stringent requirements for connecting AI accelerators, GPUs and CPUs within data centers. The move to PCIe Gen 6, which uses PAM4 signaling, represents a significant leap in data transfer speed and bandwidth, necessary to support the rapidly growing computational needs of AI and ML applications.
The introduction of PCIe Gen 6 retimers is important because it tackles the signal degradation challenges associated with higher data rates, thereby ensuring reliable communication over longer distances within server systems. For investors, this indicates Marvell's strong positioning to meet future demands in the AI and data center markets, potentially leading to increased market share and revenue growth.
Additionally, Marvell's leadership in PAM4 technology, which has been a backbone for data communication in data centers, strengthens their competitive edge. This move not only diversifies their product offerings but also widens their addressable market. Given that PCIe retimers are expected to become essential in most cloud and AI servers within a couple of years, this product line could establish Marvell as a key player in this emerging sector.
However, potential investors should be mindful of the competition and the rapid evolution in technology that could influence market dynamics. While Marvell's advancements are impressive, staying ahead in a highly innovative and competitive market requires continuous R&D and strategic partnerships.
The launch of Marvell's Alaska P PCIe retimer line is significant for several reasons. From a market perspective, the product's ability to enable higher bandwidth and faster data rates is aligned with the growing needs of AI and machine learning applications which are reshaping the landscape of data centers. The estimate that over 75% of cloud and AI servers will rely on retimers in the next two years underscores the critical role these devices will play in future data infrastructures.
This product launch positions Marvell to capitalize on the increasing demand for advanced interconnect solutions driven by AI workloads. The company's collaboration with industry giants like AMD, Arm and Intel further validates the importance and potential market acceptance of these new retimers. These partnerships likely provide Marvell with a strategic advantage in terms of market reach and technological integration.
For investors, this development suggests a forward-thinking approach by Marvell, likely to result in sustained growth and enhanced market positioning. The successful integration of this technology could lead to significant contracts with major cloud service providers and enterprise data centers, translating to increased revenue streams.
However, investors should watch for how Marvell navigates potential challenges, such as the adaptation period for new technology standards and the competitive landscape. The company's ability to maintain its technological edge and secure high-profile partnerships will be important in determining the long-term success of the Alaska P product line.
- Built on Marvell industry-leading 5nm PAM4 technology, new
Alaska ® P PCIe retimer product line scales connections between AI accelerators, GPUs, CPUs and other components inside servers. - Higher compute performance for AI drives requirement for a new category of connectivity devices.
- Industry's lowest power PCIe Gen 6 16-lane retimer is now sampling.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications are driving data flows and connections inside server systems at significantly higher bandwidth, necessitating PCIe retimers to meet the required connection distances at faster speeds. PCIe is the industry standard for inside-server-system connections between AI accelerators, GPUs, CPUs and other server components. AI models are doubling their computation requirements every six months1 and are now the primary driver of the PCIe roadmap, with PCIe Gen 6 becoming a requirement.
PCIe Gen 6, which operates at 64 gigatransfers-per-second (GT/s), is the first PCIe standard to use four-level pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM4) signaling, displacing the non-return to zero (NRZ) modulation used for the last 20 years. The higher bandwidth and faster data rate limit the physical reach signals can travel reliably, reducing the distance connections can span. Marvell® Alaska P retimers address this by compensating for the signal degradations and regenerating the signal to deliver reliable communication over the physical distances required for connections between GPUs and CPUs within an AI server, between GPUs on different boards, or between CPUs and a pool of shared memory enabled by CXL, among other use cases. The retimers can be used on AI accelerator baseboards, server motherboards, riser cards, or integrated into active electrical cables (PCIe AEC) and active optical cables (PCIe AOC) for emerging multi-rack server system architectures.
"Signal distance is a real dilemma for service providers. We estimate over
Extending PAM4 Leadership
Marvell pioneered PAM4 technology over a decade ago and leads the industry in PAM4 interconnect shipments, enabling data center backend and frontend networks. Today, most of these data center optical interconnects are based on PAM4 technology. The new Alaska P PCIe retimer product line extends the industry-leading Marvell PAM4 connectivity portfolio beyond Ethernet and InfiniBand interconnects into copper and optical PCIe, CXL and proprietary compute fabric links. The product line addresses connections inside AI and general-purpose server systems, expanding the addressable market for Marvell.
Leveraging its PAM4 SerDes technology leadership combined with its data infrastructure IP platform, Marvell has created a state-of-the-art connectivity platform that is enabling leading cloud data center operators to optimize their infrastructure for their unique architectures and workloads. In 2023, Marvell introduced Nova, the industry's first 1.6T PAM4 DSP. Marvell has also introduced integrated PAM4 DSPs (Perseus) and DSPs optimized for efficiency (Spica Gen2-T) to serve the broadening spectrum of cloud data center link types and use cases. PAM4 technology is also the foundation of the Marvell Alaska A DSP chips optimized for active electrical cable (AEC) applications.
Alaska P PCIe Retimer Benefits and Features
With typical power consumption of 10 watts, the 5nm 16-lane PCIe 6 retimer operates at the lowest power in the industry today. Available in 8- and 16-lane configurations, the Alaska P PCIe devices can compensate for 40dB of channel loss compared to the spec of 32dB at PCIe 6.
The retimers can be used for on-board or cable copper connections or combined with electrical-to-optical components to produce optical PCIe modules, addressing different cloud customer data center architectures. Marvell is working with cable and optical module partners to integrate the products into cloud-optimized interconnect solutions for different data center customer applications.
Key features include:
- Compatible with PCI Express® Gen 6/5/4/3/2/1 and Compute Express Link™ 3/2/1.1
- Industry-leading PAM4 SerDes performance
- Low-latency mode for cache-coherent links
- Industry's lowest power consumption (10W PCIe 6 x16)
- Industry-standard x16 and x8 footprints
- Advanced telemetry and diagnostics: in-band FEC monitoring, out-of-band SerDes eye monitoring, embedded logic analyzer and software suite for fleet management in large-scale deployments
"Marvell is the industry leader for data center-to-data center, switch-to-switch, rack-to-rack, server-to-switch, and server-to-server connectivity. We are now entering the market for compute fabrics as PCIe and CXL go through an inflection point, migrating from NRZ to PAM4 technology," said Venu Balasubramonian, vice president of product marketing, Connectivity Business Unit at Marvell. "Marvell is building on more than 10 years of in-house expertise in PAM4 technology and our industry-leading 5nm PAM4 IP portfolio to enable this transition. Our Alaska P PCIe retimer family is an important addition to the comprehensive Marvell accelerated infrastructure portfolio."
Strong Ecosystem Support
Raghu Nambiar, corporate vice president, Data Center Ecosystems and Solutions, AMD said: "AMD EPYC data center CPUs and AMD Instinct GPUs are essential to delivering the leadership performance needed for the most demanding and business critical applications. Our close collaboration with Marvell on PCIe technologies ensures our customers' platforms continue to meet the increased connectivity demands of next-generation AI and HPC workloads."
Dermot O'Driscoll, vice president of product solutions, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm said: "As AI and ML applications consume more power, there is a critical need for efficient interconnect technology with faster data rates. Marvell's expanding portfolio will help system designers deliver cloud-optimized Arm Neoverse-powered compute solutions with the latest in PCIe connectivity and marks a new chapter in our long history of collaboration to advance high-performance, efficient computing."
Osa Mok, chief marketing officer, InnoLight said: "Data center operators need new solutions to support evolving workloads and architectures. For instance, customers are looking for PCIe optical cables for longer reach large-scale AI accelerator interconnect and CXL disaggregation infrastructure where electrical connectivity reaches its limits. InnoLight and Marvell are leveraging our strong optical connectivity expertise and collaboration history to move the optical PCIe ecosystem forward."
Jim Pappas, director, Technology Initiatives, Intel said: "AI workloads are driving Intel computing platforms to support PCIe 6 with 64 GT/s data rate to optimize performance and utilization. PCIe retimers are critical to help deliver these platforms. PCIe retimer products such as those from Marvell can enable our platforms to meet our customers' ever-increasing performance requirements of AI and other high-performance compute workloads."
Vishwas Rao, vice president of product management, Data and Devices, TE said: "Following our successful PCIe 6 DAC cable demo with Marvell in 2023, TE Connectivity applauds Marvell's PCIe retimer product portfolio launch. The Alaska P PCIe retimer product line together with TE's advanced cabling solution will provide data center operators a powerful combination for meeting the performance requirements of mission-critical data center applications."
Availability
The Marvell Alaska P PCIe 16-lane retimer is sampling now to customers and ecosystem partners; the 8-lane product will sample next quarter. For more information, visit here.
About Marvell
To deliver the data infrastructure technology that connects the world, we're building solutions on the most powerful foundation: our partnerships with our customers. Trusted by the world's leading technology companies for over 25 years, we move, store, process and secure the world's data with semiconductor solutions designed for our customers' current needs and future ambitions. Through a process of deep collaboration and transparency, we're ultimately changing the way tomorrow's enterprise, cloud, automotive, and carrier architectures transform—for the better.
Footnote 1: Compute Trends Across Three Eras of Machine Learning
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