This document provides practical, common guidelines for incorporating PCI Express interconnect layouts onto Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) ranging from 4-layer desktop baseboard designs to 10-layer or more server baseboard designs. Guidelines and constraints in this document are intended for use on both baseboard and add-in card PCB designs. This includes interconnects between PCI Express devices located on the same baseboard (chip-to-chip routing) and interconnects between a PCI Express device located “down” on the baseboard and a device located “up” on an add-in card attached through a connector.
This document is intended to cover all major components of the physical interconnect including design guidelines for the PCB traces, vias and AC coupling capacitors, as well as add-in card edge-finger and connector considerations. The intent of the guidelines and examples is to help ensure that good high-speed signal design practices are used and that the timing/jitter and loss/attenuation budgets can also be met from end-to-end across the PCI Express interconnect.However, while general physical guidelines and suggestions are given, they may not necessarily guarantee adequate performance of the interconnect for all layouts and implementations.
Therefore, designers should consider modeling and simulation of the interconnect in order to
ensure compliance to all applicable specifications.
The document is composed of two main sections. The first section provides an overview of
general topology and interconnect guidelines. The second section concentrates on physical layout constraints where bulleted items at the beginning of a topic highlight important constraints, while the narrative that follows offers additional insight.