16-Lane PCIe Switch in Fibre Channel SAN Host Bus Adapter

Communications between servers and from servers to storage is growing at an accelerating rate. The PLX Technology PEX 8516 is a highly configurable 4-port 16-lane PCI Express Switch. Strapping pins allow a wide variety of configurations. When used in a quad-port 4 gigabit/second HBA, as shown on the next page, the switch has the capacity to aggregate two dual Fibre Channel controllers; each supporting 8 gigabits/second in each direction to an upstream x8-lane port connected to the host. The internal switching fabric can support full line rates on all of its 16 lanes. Large packet buffers and selectable flow control allows high burst traffic without dropped packets.