PCI Express System Architecture

Two Types of Local Link Traffic

Local traffic occurs between the transmit interface of one device and the receive interface of its neighbor for the purpose of managing the link itself. This traffic is never forwarded or flow controlled; when sent, it must be accepted. Local traffic is further classified as Ordered Sets exchanged between the Physical Layers of two devices on a link or Data Link Layer packets (DLLPs) exchanged between the Data Link Layers of the two devices.

Ordered Sets

These are sent by each physical layer transmitter to the physical layer of the corresponding receiver to initiate link training, compensate for clock tolerance, or transition a link to and from the Electrical Idle state. As indicated in Table 3-1 on page 109, there ...