Electrical – PCIE Trace Length Matching Between Tx, Rx, and Clock

pcbpcie

Looking at laying out a PCB that will utilize PCIE. I've read that you want to keep intra-pair trace length to 5mils max and that inter-pair trace length matching is not terribly important. The current plan was to keep all Tx pairs within 100mils and all Rx pairs within 100mils, but what I'm not sure about is how close to the same length the Tx pairs, Rx pairs, and Clock pair have to be. I read one site that said that up to a 3" difference is acceptable but that seems rather large to me.

Best Answer

From Wikipedia

While the lanes are not tightly synchronized, there is a limit to the lane to lane skew of 20/8/6 ns for 2.5/5/8 GT/s so the hardware buffers can re-align the striped data

The allowed skew between the databytes in one direction is 6ns for 8 GT/s. Rx and Tx length matching is not critical as there is wide allowed duration. Assume it as a full duplex communication. How much exactly depends on the data link layer but definitely okay with 3 inch or so. Assuming 160ps per inch of propogation delay, the the 3 inch propogation delay will be about 0.5 ns. (Less than 2 ns)

  • Most important is to match and route the intra differential pairs well.