PCI Express Physical Layer

The Physical Layer includes all circuitry for interface operation, including driver and input buffers, parallel-to-serial and serial-to-parallel conversion, PLL(s), and impedance matching circuitry. It includes also logical functions related to interface initialization and maintenance. The Physical Layer exchanges information with the Data Link Layer in an implementation-specific format. This Layer is responsible for converting information received from the Data Link Layer into an appropriate serialized format and transmitting it across the PCI Express Link at a frequency and width compatible with the device connected to the other side of the Link.
The PCI Express architecture has “hooks” to support future performance enhancements via speed upgrades and advanced encoding techniques. The future speeds, encoding techniques or media may only impact the Physical Layer definition.