PCI Express System Architecture

Introduction

Unlike shared-bus architectures such as PCI and PCI-X, where traffic is visible to each device and routing is mainly a concern of bridges, PCI Express devices are dependent on each other to accept traffic or forward it in the direction of the ultimate recipient.

As illustrated in Figure 3-1 on page 106, a PCI Express topology consists of independent, point-to-point links connecting each device with one or more neighbors. As traffic arrives at the inbound side of a link interface (called the ingress port), the device checks for errors, then makes one of three decisions:

1. Accept the traffic and use it internally.

2. Forward the traffic to the appropriate outbound (egress) port.

3. Reject the traffic because it is neither the intended target ...