The Renesas PCIe® 2.1 Gen2 repeater family offers the industry a blend of top analog performance, lower power and the most system-level features in signal repeaters optimized for demanding 2.5Gbps to 5Gbps applications in computing, storage and communications.

Benefits of Renesas PCIe repeaters (PCIe redrivers):

  • Extends maximum cable length to over 10 meters and trace length over 65 inches in PCIe applications
  • Speeds up system design time by allowing usage of longer trace and cable lengths
  • Minimizes bit error rate (BER)

Industry-Leading PCIe Repeater Products

The Renesas 5Gbps PCIe repeaters (PCIe redrivers) feature EyeBoost™ technology that compensates for cable and board trace attenuations and ISI jitter, thereby extending connection reach. The PCIe redrivers are optimized for PCIe Gen 1 and Gen 2 high-speed serial data streams and contain eight data channels, each able to process 5Gbps transmission rates. Each channel consists of an input equalizer and amplifier, signal detection with glitch filter, as well as programmable output swing, slew rate, and de-emphasis with delay control. Since all of these features are user-programmable, they allow for application-specific optimization.

In addition to per-channel programmable features, the Renesas PCIe redrivers feature global programmable settings, such as termination resistance values and transfer modes. The PCIe redrivers, with all of their programmable receiver and transmitter features, are ideal for PCI Express applications using any combination of cables and board trace materials.

All modes of active data transfer by the PCIe repeater are designed for minimal power consumption. Also, a wide range of power-reducing modes enable the user to eliminate power of unused blocks, including a shutdown mode. In full shutdown mode, the Renesas PCIe repeaters consume only 10mW per channel (40mW for 4-ch device, and 80mW for 8-ch device).

The Renesas PCIe redrivers are ideal for a myriad of applications, including blade servers, rack servers, PCIe instrumentation, storage systems, and cabled PCIe devices.

Features of the Renesas PCIe repeater family include:

  • 4 or 8-channel signal repeater
  • Advanced signal conditioning features
  • Advanced diagnostic features
  • Protocol-specific features
  • Advanced power-saving features
  • Built-in mux/demux for fail-over support
  • I2C programming interface
  • Commercial and industrial temperature

About PCIe Repeaters (PCIe Redrivers)

High-speed signals can deteriorate to unacceptable levels by the time they reach end receivers, due to transmitter, receiver, and channel characteristics. PCIe repeaters (aka PCIe redrivers) ensure minimized jitter and maximized eye opening at the target receiver by compensating for cable and PCB trace attenuation and ISI jitter. This is accomplished by boosting the transmitted signal, by equalizing the received signal, or by doing both when either option by itself is not sufficient due to channel length or due to discontinuities generated by vias and connectors.