Peripheral Component Interconnect Express(PCI Express ), abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e. It is a bus standard and also called high-speed serial computer bus standard, it substituted the older PCI, AGP and PCI-X bus standards. It is the common interface for personal computers with motherboards.

Ex:-  Graphic Card, HDDs, SSDs, Wi-Fi, and Ethernet hardware connections.

What is PCIe Lanes

An interconnect or link is a logical connection that enables communication between PCI Express devices. A link is a point-to-point communication channel that connects two PCI Express ports, enabling them to exchange routine PCI requests including configuration, I/O or memory read/write requests, and interrupts.

A lane consists of two differential signalling pairs, one of which is used for receiving data and the other for transmitting data. Each lane is made up of four wires or signal traces as a result. Each lane is conceptually utilised as a full-duplex byte stream, sending and receiving data packets in an eight-bit “byte” format back and forth between connection ends.

Physical PCI Express links can be 1, 4, 8, or 16 lanes in length. 4, 5 The greatest size that is typically used for lane counts is “x16,” with other sizes denoted by a “x” prefix (for instance, “x8” signifies an eight-lane card or slot). The phrases “width” or “by” are also used to describe lane sizes, so an eight-lane space can be referred to as “8 lanes wide” or “a by 8.”

. Link between two devices consists of one or more lanes is called  PCI Express lanes, These lanes are dual simplex channels using two differential signaling pairs. A lane is a single send/receive line of data. The interface is also called ExpressCard used in a variety of other standards, most particularly the laptop expansion card interface. PCI Express is also used in the storage interfaces of SATA, and M.2

Each lane moves the data at 1 bit per cycle at least. The actual speed at which the data is transferred across a lane is determined by the CPU as well as the PCIe version.

PCIe Gen Max Speed

what is pci express link state power management

Up to 3 A at +3.3 V may be consumed by all PCI express cards (9.9 W). The form factor and function of the card will determine how much +12 V and overall power they may use:

An x4 device will operate at 4 bits per cycle yet take up 4 PCIe lanes if an x1   device operates at 1 bit per cycle.A typical graphics card uses 16 PCIe lanes because it is an x16 device.The number of PCIe lanes varies based on the generation, make, and model of your CPU. A typical Intel Core series CPU from the 10th and lower generations, for example, has 16 lanes. The x16 slot is connected to all 16 lanes.

Processor vs Chipset allocated PCIe lanes

20PCIe Lanes Means

In Intel Processors 11th Gen CPU,  have 20 PCIe lanes. 16 of these connect to an x16 slot and the rest of 4 lanes connect to an M.2 slot.

How Many PCIe Lanes Does M.2 Slot Use?

Normally M.2 uses 4 PCIe lanes for installing NVMe SSDs. Sometimes, on particular motherboards you can also find M.2 slots connected to only 2 PCIe lanes. 2 PCIe lane M.2 slots will operate the NVMe SSDs at half the speeds.

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