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Benefits

  • Support for All Generations – PCI, PCIe 1.0 → PCIe 5.0.
  • Backward Compatibility – Validate mixed PCI and PCIe environments.
  • Rapid Design Iteration – Test lane width, arbitration, and flow control in days.
  • System-Level Insight – Analyze throughput, latency, and congestion.
  • Risk Reduction – Catch bottlenecks before RTL or silicon.
  • Flexibility – Works for both commercial IP validation and custom controller designs.

The PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) Bus block in VisualSim models the industry-standard
high-speed interconnect used in processors, memory, accelerators, and peripherals.

PCIe is faster and more reliable than older PCI buses, offering point-to-point links with dedicated send and receive paths, enabling simultaneous bidirectional communication. VisualSim’s PCIe block includes flow control, error handling, retries, and arbitration to ensure smooth, standards-compliant communication.

VisualSim supports PCIe 1.0 through PCIe 7.0, ensuring designers can validate both legacy systems and the latest high-speed designs, while maintaining compatibility with existing PCI applications and drivers.

Key Parameters

  • Bus_Name – Identifier for PCIe block.
  • Number_of_Lanes – Scalable from x1 to x16.
  • Slave_Buffer / Master_Buffer – Configurable queue depths.
  • Header_Bytes – Packet overhead.
  • BER (Bit Error Rate) – Error modeling.
  • Max_Payload_Size – Data transfer unit.
  • Max_Payload_Req_Size – Request size.
  • Read_to_Write_Ratio – Workload balance.

Parameter Snapshots

  • Parameter

Simulation Results

  • Latency & Throughput Analysis – Performance under different generations and lane widths.
  • Error Handling Studies – Retry and recovery efficiency.
  • Scaling Studies – Gen1 through Gen5 comparisons.
  • Arbitration Impact – Fairness vs. priority scheduling.
  • Activity Plotter
  • Read Throughput Plotter
  • Stats
  • Write Throughput Plotter

Applications

  • Servers & Data Centers – High-speed interconnect for CPUs, GPUs, and accelerators.
  • AI & HPC Systems – PCIe Gen4/Gen5 for GPU–NPU–FPGA traffic.
  • Automotive – In-vehicle networking, ADAS accelerators, and ECUs.
  • Embedded & Industrial – Backward compatibility with legacy PCI while adding PCIe endpoints.
  • Storage Systems – NVMe SSDs connected through PCIe Gen4/Gen5.
  • Chiplet-Based SoCs – PCIe as part of heterogeneous die-to-die connectivity.

Integrations

  • Connects to NVMe, Flash, and DDR/HBM controllers for storage modeling.
  • Interfaces with processors, GPUs, FPGAs, and accelerators.
  • Works alongside NoCs, CXL, and DMA blocks for end-to-end interconnect studies.

View Demo

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