Specifications

Switchtec PFX part number breakdown

PM50052 is the Microchip Switchtec PFX Gen5 fanout switch with 52 lanes. The Switchtec PFX Gen5 family scales in 52-lane increments: PM50028 (28 lanes), PM50036 (36), PM50052 (52), PM50068 (68), PM50084 (84) and PM50100 (100). All members share the same architecture — up to 52 ports, 26 virtual switch partitions and 48 non-transparent bridges — and differ only in the lane count bonded out, which makes the lane count the only selection criterion between them.

PFX (fanout) and PSX (programmable) are distinct Switchtec Gen5 families with different firmware models; PFX parts are not drop-in replacements for PSX and vice versa even where the lane count matches.

Application

The Switchtec PM50052 is used to build PCIe Gen5 fanout fabrics inside storage JBODs, GPU and accelerator chassis, NVMe switch add-in cards and multi-host AI racks. The non-transparent bridges let up to 48 hosts share endpoints without a fabric manager, which is how 8-GPU PCIe backplane boxes present a clean x16 root to each host. Per-port hot-plug controllers support NVMe surprise removal, and the ChipLink tool platform plus integrated analyzer give in-system link diagnostics at Gen5 rates without an external protocol analyzer.

QS Compute supplies Microchip Switchtec PFX and PSX PCIe Gen4/Gen5/Gen6 switches and Broadcom PEX / Astera Labs retimers for AI rack fabric, storage JBOD and GPU backplane design, with B2B pricing and short sample lead times.