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PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard developed by the PCI-SIG (PCI Special Interest Group). It is designed to replace the older PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) and PCI-X (PCI Extended) standards, offering significantly higher data transfer rates and improved power management capabilities. PCIe is widely used in modern computing systems, including personal computers, servers, and embedded systems.

The PCIe specification defines a family of serial point-to-point links that can be combined to form a switched fabric topology. Each link consists of two differential signal pairs, one for transmitting data and one for receiving data. The base specification for PCIe 1.0 was released in 2003, with subsequent versions (PCIe 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0) introducing higher data transfer rates and improved features. The latest version, PCIe 6.0, was released in 2022 and offers a theoretical maximum data transfer rate of 64 GT/s (gigatransfers per second), which translates to 128 Gbit/s (gigabits per second) of raw bandwidth.

PCIe is used to connect a wide variety of devices to a computer system, including graphics cards, storage devices (such as SSDs and HDDs), network interface cards, and expansion cards. The standard also supports hot-plugging, allowing devices to be added or removed while the system is running. PCIe is backward compatible with PCI and PCI-X, meaning that devices designed for these older standards can be used in PCIe systems with the help of adapters or bridges.

PCIe is a critical component of modern computing systems, enabling high-speed data transfer between the CPU and various peripherals. Its continued evolution and adoption of new technologies, such as NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) for storage devices, demonstrate its importance in the ongoing advancement of computer hardware.