Introduction to PCIe 4.0 Electrical Compliance Test

Figure 1: PCI Express is now in its fourth generation
and poses daunting physical-layer test challenges

The Peripheral Component Interface Express standard (PCI Express, or PCIe) has been with us for some 14 years now, a pretty good run by computer-industry standards, and it shows no signs of fading away anytime soon. Now in its fourth generation, which sports data-transfer rates up to 16 Gb/s, PCIe presents daunting physical-layer test requirements (Figure 1).