News: 0001632884

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Linux 7.2 To Add Support For Switchtec PCIe Gen6 Switches

([Hardware] 5 Hours Ago Microchip Switchtec)


The upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel will be adding support for Microchip's Switchtec PCIe Gen6 switches.

Microchip announced last year the Gen 6 PCIe Switchtec family manufactured on a 3nm process, full support for PCIe Gen 6, and capable of handling AI/ML training clusters, hyperscale cloud platforms, NVMe PCIe 6.0 storage support, and more. The Switchtec PCIe Gen 6 switches come in configurations up to 20 ports and 160 lanes with the PFX 160xG6 switch or some Gen6 models also available with 144 PCIe lanes. More details on the Switchtec Gen6 family can be found via the [1]press release from last November.

Queued via the PCI subsystem's "next" Git branch is now [2]this patch from Microchip adding the necessary Switchtec Gen6 device IDs for the different switch SKUs. That was the last piece of the puzzle in enabling these PCIe Gen 6 switches to be supported by the mainline Linux kernel. With now being in the "next" branch, it should be merged as part of the PCI changes for the upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel cycle.



[1] https://www.microchip.com/en-us/about/media-center/blog/2025/introducing-the-first-3nm-gen-6-pcie-switchtec-family

[2] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/pci/pci.git/commit/?h=next&id=5e6c21c56998e1e58d2f314e70779989ea0fee5d



Brief History Of Linux (#28)
Free, Open, Libre, Whatever Software

Eric S. Raymond's now famous paper, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", set
the stage for the lucrative business of giving software away. In CatB, ESR
likened the software industry to an anarchistic bazaar, with each vendor
looking out for himself, trying to hoodwink customers and fellow vendors.
The produce vendor (i.e. Apple), for instance, felt no need to cooperate
with the crystal-ball seller (Oracle) or the con artist hocking miracle
drugs (Microsoft). Each kept their property and trade secrets to
themselves, hoping to gain an edge and make money fast. "With enough
eyeballs, all bug-ridden software programs are marketable," ESR observed.

ESR contrasted the "caveat emptor" Bazaar to an idealistic Cathedral model
used by free software developers. European cathedrals of medieval days
were built block-by-block with extensive volunteer manpower from the
surrounding community. Such projects were "open" in the sense that
everybody could see their progress, and interested people could wander
inside and offer comments or praise about construction methods. "Those
medieval cathedrals are still standing," ESR mused. "But bazaars built in
the 14th Century are long gone, a victim of their inferior nature."