Aries PCIe®/CXL® Smart Cable Modules™

Multi-rack GPU clustering for AI with an
industry-first 7 meter reach over copper cables

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Unleash GPU-to-GPU Clustering Across Racks

  • Extends PCIe® 5.0, PCIe 4.0, and CXL® signal reach across dense AI racks using Active Electrical Cables
  • Built on the proven track record of our widely deployed and field-tested Aries PCIe/CXL Smart DSP Retimers
  • Supports multiple form factors and configurations to accommodate diverse AI system topologies
  • COSMOS suite for performance optimization and seamless fleet management across dense AI platforms

Aries SCM Highlights

Enabling reliable PCIe/CXL for rack-to-rack connectivity

Robust Signal
Integrity

Over copper cables with flexible link bifurcation

Extended Cable
Reach By

Compared to passive DAC solutions

Enhanced Diagnostics
& Telemetry

Advanced capabilities through in-band and out-of-band management

Why Use Aries Smart Cable Modules?

Aries SCMs enable robust, easy-to-design PCIe and CXL cabling while also offering COSMOS suite of built-in advanced fleet management, security, and deep diagnostic capabilities critical to ensuring high reliability and up-time.

Robustness

  • Supported Data Rates

    32 GT/s, 16 GT/s, 8 GT/s, 5 GT/s, and 2.5 GT/s Data Rates with Automatic Link Equalization

  • Power Efficient

    Low power CMOS process and L1.0 Low-Power Mode minimizes rack power/thermal density

  • Low Latency

    Less than 10ns

  • Security

    Advanced security features help prevent malicious attacks of unauthorized firmware loading, module diagnostics access, and configurations

Ease-of-use

  • Thin Cable Gauge

    Offering thin cables in various lengths for flexible bend radius

  • Extended Reach

    Up to 7m for long reach inter-rack connectivity

  • Flexible Supply Chain

    Aries SCMs are compatible with multiple cable vendors for ease of second sourcing of active cable assemblies

  • Interop Testing

    Rigorous system testing with 50+ Endpoints and all major Root Complex

Fleet Management

  • Quick Debug

    Built-in protocol analyzer with Link state history and timestamps, full non-destructive eye scan for RX Lane margining, self-test features to minimize link downtime and accelerate fault isolation

  • Deep Diagnostics

    Firmware-driven link health monitoring to alert BMC of any possible link performance issues

Use Cases

Memory Disaggregation

Expand, pool and share memory between multiple servers to increase memory bandwidth and capacity while providing the option to reclaim stranded or under-utilized…

Resources

Ordering Information

Part NumberDocumentsPCIe Gen PCIe LanesOrderingProduction Status
PM20-5XXPortfolio BriefPCIe 5.0VariousContact UsSampling

Building the Case for UALink™: A Dedicated Scale-Up Memory Semantic Fabric

Understanding the LandscapeAs AI models continue to rapidly evolve and drive a need for higher FLOPs and larger memory footprints, AI clusters will need to continue to grow to keep up. As the AI clusters rapidly scale in size from 25,000 GPUs per cluster[1] to 100,000 GPUs to 200,000 GPUs[2], not only is there a need to provide the connectivity between the GPUs in these clusters, but…

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Driving AI and Cloud Innovation: How Astera Labs is Expanding its Market Opportunity

The year 2024 has been extremely exciting for Astera Labs with multiple big milestones including a successful IPO in March and the expansion of our Intelligent Connectivity Platform with the introduction of our Scorpio Smart Fabric Switch family. The company continues to scale aggressively with the goal of becoming the premier provider of purpose-built connectivity solutions into the AI and…

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Overcome Next-Gen AI Infrastructure Challenges with Scorpio Smart Fabric Switches

In today’s rapidly evolving AI landscape, hyperscale data centers are under immense pressure to keep up with the processing demands for AI data flows that power Generative AI applications. AI models are moving at rapid pace and scale with four major LLMs on track for release in Q4, 2024 while models, such as Gemini 1.5 Pro-002, are weighing in at 1.5 trillion parameters with others to follow…

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Astera Labs Announces Financial Results for the Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2024

Record quarterly revenue of $113.1 million, up 47% QoQ and up 206% YoY Expanding market opportunities with new Scorpio Fabric Switches, driving higher dollar content in AI platformsSANTA CLARA, CA, U.S. – November 4, 2024 – Astera Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALAB), a global leader in semiconductor-based connectivity solutions for cloud and AI infrastructure, today announced preliminary…

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Astera Labs Introduces New Portfolio of Fabric Switches Purpose-Built for AI Infrastructure at Cloud-Scale

Shipping in pre-production quantities, Scorpio Smart Fabric Switches deliver maximum system utilization and uptime for scale-out PCIe 6 connectivity and scale-up GPU clustering in AI serversSANTA CLARA, CA, U.S. – October 8, 2024 – Astera Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALAB), a global leader in semiconductor-based connectivity solutions for AI and cloud infrastructure, today announced a new…

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Astera Labs Announces Conference Call to Review Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results

SANTA CLARA, CA, U.S. – Oct. 2, 2024 – Astera Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALAB), a global leader in semiconductor-based connectivity solutions for AI and cloud infrastructure, today announced that it will release its financial results for the third quarter 2024 after the close of market on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. Astera Labs will host a corresponding conference call at 1:30 p.m. Pacific…

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Astera Labs Opens New R&D Hub in Bengaluru to Drive AI and Cloud Innovation

Dr. Shivananda Koteshwar to lead the company’s India operations and spearhead development of innovative connectivity solutions for AI and cloud infrastructureSANTA CLARA, CA, U.S. – September 11, 2024 – Astera Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALAB), a global leader in semiconductor-based connectivity solutions for AI and cloud infrastructure, today announced the official opening of its…

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PCIe Cabling Demo at OCP 2024

At OCP Global Summit 2024, Astera Labs demonstrated its full portfolio of PCIe cabling solutions. The live demos included Aries PCIe/CXL Smart Cable Modules with Active Electrical Cables and Active Optical Cables to deliver extended reach for rack-to-rack and row-to-row configurations.

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CXL Demo for DLRM at OCP Summit 2024

At OCP Global Summit, Astera Labs demonstrated the performance benefits of CXL memory for Deep Learning Recommendation Models (DLRM). The demo featured a 5th Gen AMD EPYC processor, DDR5 memory from Samsung, and four Leo CXL Smart Memory Controllers. The demo showed that by doubling memory capacity and bandwidth in the system, there is about a 70% increase in performance for DLRM.

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End-to-End PCIe 6 Live Demo at OCP Summit 2024

At OCP Global Summit 2024, Astera Labs showcased the industry’s first end-to-end PCIe 6 demo, featuring the Scorpio Smart Fabric Switch. The Scorpio P-Series Fabric Switch was linked live at PCIe 6 64Gtps speeds with Gen 6 Exerciser from Keysight. In addition, see how COSMOS software suite delivers deep diagnostics and telemetry. 

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