Skyworks

Skyworks’ Si5332 Clock Family Supports PCIe 6.0

Posted on by Techtime

Above: The Si53301/4-EVB development kit

Skyworks Solutions announced the evolution of its Si5332 family of high-performance clock generators, supporting the industry transition to PCI Express Generation 6 (PCIe 6.0). According to PCI-SIG, new applications including Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Edge Computing are driving the need for higher performance and increased bandwidth interconnects for compute, switching and storage platforms in data centers.

The Si5332 product family supports PCIe 6.0 while maintaining backwards compatibility with older PCIe standards. “PCIe 6.0 is the future of the data center,” said James Wilson, VP and general manager of timing products at Skyworks. “We have qualified our Si5332 family to provide reference timing for the newest PCIe 6.0 applications.”

PCIe 6.0 increases data rates to 64GT/s and enables bandwidths as high as 256Gbps, effectively doubling the performance of PCIe 5.0. This latest upgrade to the PCIe standard ensures the high-speed interconnects used in data center applications do not become a bottleneck and complements the industry’s transition to 400G and 800G Ethernet.

Eye-diagrams for PAM4

Unlike prior generations of the PCIe standard, PCIe 6.0 uses PAM4 modulation to combine two bits into a single symbol with four amplitude levels. This approach doubles the transfer speed but degrades the eye diagram by replacing a single, large data eye with three smaller data eyes. Using a low jitter PCIe reference clock maximizes the PAM4 data eye opening and minimizes bit-error rate, which is necessary for faster transfer speeds.

The Si5332 is ideally suited to replace fixed function oscillators, clocks and buffers with a single IC. The device features Skyworks proprietary MultiSynth fractional divider technology, for better jitter performance. The Si5332 is available in 6, 8 and 12-output options, with support for integrated format/level translation, LVPECL, LVDS, HCSL and LVCMOS, and 1.8-3.3V VDDO operation.

When combined with support for PCIe 6.0, the Si5332 is well suited to operate as a data center clock-tree-on-a-chip, replacing multiple timing components with a highly integrated, high-performance solution. In addition to this Si5332 product announcement, Skyworks announced PCIe 6.0 support in its PCIe Jitter Tool – widely used for measuring PCIe clocks and evaluating compliance to PCIe jitter specs.

             

 

Skyworks is represented and supported in Israel by Elina Electronic Engineering Group.

For more information contact Eng. Silvio, tel: +972-54-7559692

“Clock synchronization in 5G is a compute-intensive challenge”

Posted on by Techtime

Right after the announcement of the Skyworks Solutions‘ new NetSync platform for clock synchronization in G5 and Open RAN networks, a professional Skyworks team arrived to introduce the innovative technology to the Israeli industry. The team’s product manager, Lokesh Duraiappah, told Techtime that this is the first Skyworks’ product combines both software and hardware. “5G networks are based on IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol. It consists of 128-bit words and requires high level of intensive computations in order to define the correct time on each device”.

“This is why we had to develop a complete system with dedicated hardware components such as PHY for Ethernet and the AccuTime software, which is installed on the devices processors and is in charge of performing the computations. Almost every element in 5G network (Radio and control Components) will have to perform the Boundary Clock computations by itself. The platform is ready for use in an Open RAN networks, and thus is expected to open a new large market for us, beyond traditional equipment manufacturers which dominate the Telecom market today.”

The Synchronization Solution Group was founded by Silicon Labs twenty years ago, and is specializing in supplying low jitter clock solutions. Silicon Labs targeted the utilization of Digital CMOS technologies for the development and production of Analog and Mixed Signals components, based on TSMC process. In April 2021 Skyworks acquired the Infrastructure & Automotive Business of Silicon Labs, which includes the 100-employees of the synchronization group.

Atomic clock + multiple intermediate computations

Last month the company announced its new solutions within the NetSync family, Si551x and Si540x, which enables synchronization at all nodes and components in a Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE) networks, especially Telecom networks. Lokesh: “Network synchronization is a complicated process, and it even more complicated with 5G networks. The signals are originated from atomic clock connected to the network and provides the initial datum of time. When the network operates, every component within the network is required to calculate its exact time, and when two components are communicating, there is a need to calculate the time differences and to synchronize their clocks.

“The computation is highly complicated, as there are many types of delays within the network. One method we are using to improve performance is based on the traditional Silicon Labs’ approach: We took a system composed of separate components, and merged them into a single silicon solution. One of our business partners is now developing the ability to migrate our software to RISC-V processors.

“The Israeli market is of high significance for us. We have many customers here, at list a few dozen.” Skyworks synchronization division is represented in Israel by Elina Electronic Engineering Group, following its representation of Silicon Labs in the past 25 years. According to Arie Yosef, Elina’s owner and CEO, the Israeli market has special importance at this area for Skyworks: “They arrived here with a strong team of professionals to meet local companies such as Intel, Mobileye and many others.”

Translated by P. Ofer