December 6, 2005 -- PLX Technology, Inc. has announced the PEX 8311, a bridging device dedicated to upgrading standard processor, DSP, and FPGA bus interface designs to PCIe. The newest member of the PLX ExpressLane family of PCIe switches and bridges, the feature-rich PEX 8311 provides the power and flexibility of PCIe to embedded designs spanning the video, imaging, communications, and industrial-control markets.

The PEX 8311 provides an efficient conversion between a parallel, low-overhead local bus and the serial, packet-based PCIe interconnect, allowing users to add a scalable, high-bandwidth interconnect to a wide variety of root complex- or endpoint-based applications.

The PEX 8311 provides a cost-effective, off-the-shelf alternative to programmable solutions; using the device to bridge between PCIe and a local bus can save up to 50 percent of the cost of programmable solutions, with no IP expenses or added design time. In addition, the PEX 8311 delivers features not found in IP for programmable devices, such as two independent data-transfer channels for simultaneous bidirectional traffic, simultaneous Direct Master and Direct Slave modes, four general-purpose I/Os to program/control other system ICs, a read-ahead mode and zero-wait-state bursts for high throughput, and integrated SerDes physical-layer (PHY) interfaces that eliminate the need for a separate PHY device.

The bridge is supported by PLX's Rapid Development Kit (RDK) line of tools; the PEX 8311RDK includes a proven, working hardware platform incorporating the PEX 8311, a complete set of board schematics, symbols, and layout files for hardware design. The kit also features an extensive software development kit that includes a graphical utility for access to chip registers, sample drivers and a support library for Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems.

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