PCIe 4.0 clocks bring low power to intelligent and autonomous designs

Diodes Incorporated has launched a family of automotive-compliant PCIe 4.0 clock generators and buffers featuring advanced features for demanding automotive applications, including head units, ADAS, ECUs, telematics, navigation, and infotainment. The PI6CG182Q, PI6CG184Q PI6CG188Q (PCIe 4.0 clock generators) and PI6CB184Q (PCIe 4.0 clock buffers) offer differential low-power, high-speed current steering logic (HCSL) outputs with on-chip termination. They have been created to generate and distribute a reference clock signal for chipsets using PCIe Gen 4 interfaces. These devices are all qualified to AEC-Q100 Grade 2, with an operating temperature range of -40C to +105C, hence they are ideal for any automotive PCIe application. Operating at 1.8V and with integrated on-chip termination at every HCSL output, the devices reduce power consumption and eliminate the need for external resistors; designers would otherwise need to add four resistors per output pair, or up to 32 resistors for an eight-output device, and lose power via the external resistors. Each output also features its own enable pin to additionally improve power management on outputs that are unused. The devices are based on the company’s proprietary PLL technology. This design incorporates some advanced features including programmable output slew rate and amplitude, and selectable spread-spectrum on differential outputs to help reduce EMI. This can be especially advantageous when producing for an automotive environment. These automotive-compliant clocks were created with the automotive manufacturing environment in mind, so wettable-flank QFN packages have been used to ensure compatibility with automated visual inspection.