At the core of the design is an active PCIe retimer IC (commonly Gen4 or Gen5 compliant), which performs full clock-data recovery (CDR), equalization, and re-transmission of the PCIe signals. Unlike passive redrivers, the retimer completely re-clocks the data stream, allowing the AIC to support longer copper cable lengths, higher insertion loss budgets, and more complex routing paths without violating PCIe eye-diagram and jitter specifications. This makes the card suitable for PCIe Gen4 (16 GT/s) and PCIe Gen5 (32 GT/s) deployments, especially in dense server, storage, and accelerator architectures.
Micro SATA Cables PN # MCIO-2437-AIC
The MCIO 74-pin interface provides a compact, high-density external connector capable of carrying up to eight PCIe lanes, sideband signals, and reference clock pairs. In a PCIe x4 implementation, a subset of the MCIO lane pairs is populated and mapped directly to the host PCIe lanes via the retimer. This enables clean breakout to MCIO-to-MCIO, MCIO-to-OCuLink, MCIO-to-EDSFF, or MCIO-to-U.2/U.3 cable assemblies, supporting NVMe SSDs, PCIe switches, GPU/AI accelerators, or remote backplanes.
From a system perspective, the PCIe x4 Retimer to MCIO 74P AIC is commonly used in disaggregated architectures, such as front-loaded NVMe storage trays, external PCIe expansion enclosures, JBOF/JBOD platforms, and OCP-inspired modular servers. The active retiming allows system designers to exceed traditional PCIe trace and cable limits while maintaining protocol compliance, interoperability, and deterministic link training. Optional features on some designs include auxiliary power inputs, SMBus/I²C management for retimer configuration, temperature monitoring, and low-profile or full-height brackets to match server chassis requirements.