Silicon Labs Pushes Energy-Saving PCI Express Clock

Silicon Labs (Core Labs Inc.) Announces New 1- and 2-Output PCI Express (PCIe) Clock Generators with Industry's Smallest Package and Lowest Power to Further Expand Industry-Leading PCIe Clock solution. The Si52111 and Si52112 clock generator ICs fully meet the stringent requirements of the PCIe Gen 1/2/3 standard, specifically designed for mass consumer, embedded, communications, and enterprise-class applications that are sensitive to board space, power, and system cost sensitivity. .

Silicon Labs' Si5211x clock generator is designed for space-constrained, power-sensitive and consumer electronics products that require industry-standard PCIe connectivity such as digital cameras. To meet the small size requirements of these consumer applications, the Si5211x clock is available in a 3 mm x 3 mm 10-pin TDFN package, which is the smallest package on the current PCIe clock market. Ultra-low-power clock generators reduce current consumption (less than 15mA) by up to 8 times compared to similar products, making it easier for designers to meet green energy regulations while enhancing system reliability. In addition, the chip also meets PCIe jitter requirements of up to 50% margin, with a lower bit error rate, thereby further enhancing reliability.

In addition to saving power and improving jitter margin, the Si5211x clock generator also uses innovative push-pull output buffering technology. The Si5211x PCIe clock generator integrates all terminals and reference resistors compared to current market solutions, eliminating the need for additional external components. The highly integrated chip design is designed to help system designers reduce material costs, board area requirements, and design complexity. Most of the other company's solutions need to add up to 4 resistors per output clock and 1 current source reference resistor. Another benefit of integrating the resistors in the chip is that the designer can design a simple transmission line between the Si5211x IC output and the receiver input, simplifying the board design and eliminating discontinuities in the clock transmission lines to improve signal integrity.

Mike Petrowski, vice president and general manager of clock products at Silicon Labs, said: "The popularity of PCIe interface standards in network storage and servers and various applications has driven the demand for small, highly integrated and ultra-low power PCIe clock solutions. Silicon Labs meets application requirements with the industry's smallest and lowest-power PCIe clock generators. Silicon Labs' PCIe clock generators are small in size, but many other features are integrated into this single-chip solution that greatly improves signal integrity."

As the world's leading "one-stop" clock IC product supplier, Silicon Labs provides the industry with the most complete PCIe-compatible clock solutions. Silicon Labs Expands its PCIe Clock Portfolio to a Wide Variety of Clock Generators and Clock Buffers for Power- and Cost-Sensitive PCIe Applications; and Custom Clock Generators/Buffers for Networks, Based on FPGA and SoC Design Needs, Requires Multiple Differentials Clock format and compatible with PCIe standard.

The Silicon Labs Si5211x PCIe clock generator is now in production, with selectable 1- and 2-way PCIe outputs. In 10,000 purchases, the unit price of the chip is from 0.53 US dollars to 0.91 US dollars. In addition, Silicon Labs also provides an easy-to-use evaluation platform to accelerate the development of PCIe applications. The two-output Si52112-B4-EVB PCIe clock generator evaluation board costs $100.