- 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.
SANTA
CLARA, Calif., May 30, 2024
/PRNewswire/ -- Marvell Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRVL), a leader
in data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, today expanded its
connectivity portfolio with the launch of the new Alaska® P PCIe retimer product line
built to scale data center compute fabrics inside accelerated
servers, general-purpose servers, CXL systems and disaggregated
infrastructure. The first two products, 8- and 16-lane PCIe Gen 6
retimers, connect AI accelerators, GPUs, CPUs and other components
inside server systems.
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 75% of cloud and AI servers shipping two years from
now will rely on retimers and these servers will contain multiple
retimers. An eight GPU server might contain 16 or more of these
devices. Retimers will even percolate into enterprise servers,"
said Alan Weckel, co-founder of 650
Group. "Marvell's extensive
experience in PAM4 technology positions the company well to drive
the evolution of this emerging market."
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
Marvell and the M logo are
trademarks of Marvell or its
affiliates. Please visit www.marvell.com for a complete list of
Marvell trademarks. Other names
and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
AMD, the AMD logo, AMD Instinct, EPYC and combinations thereof
are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within
the meaning of the federal securities laws that involve risks and
uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include, without
limitation, any statement that may predict, forecast, indicate or
imply future events or achievements. Actual events or results may
differ materially from those contemplated in this press release.
Forward-looking statements are only predictions and are subject to
risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict,
including those described in the "Risk Factors" section of our
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other documents filed by us from time to time with the SEC.
Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made.
Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking
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For further information, contact:
Michael Kanellos
pr@marvell.com
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