ADVANCED SWITCHING

11/22/2003

Advanced Switching is an extension to PCI Express (nee 3GIO, nee Araphoe) that Intel plans to ship in Q1 or Q2 2005. Advanced Switching extends PCI Express to provide switched interconnections to the bus. AS adds routing, multicast, and support for network protocols to PCI Express. An Advanced Switching 1.0 Specification is scheduled for completion by the end of 2003. Some sort of interim communication capability will purportedly be provided to bridge the gap between PCI Express availability in 2004 and AS availability.

Advanced switching appears to be primarily directed at industrial/special purpose applications where it would be used to do data routing. It appears to be largely focused on communications applications, but Intel is said to be planning to incorporate it in motherboard chipsets eventually. Advanced switching may have a role in future multi-CPU designs.