A hardware project by Sylvain Munaut demonstrates running plain PCIe over fiber using off-the-shelf QSFP transceivers, bypassing encapsulating protocols like Thunderbolt. The test setup uses a Raspberry Pi 5 on a PCIe breakout board with custom SFP module PCBs and single-mode fiber, achieving a Gen 2 x1 link. Key challenges include PCIe device detection, side-channel clocking, and Gen 3 equalization training. The project builds on prior work from 2016 and aims to eventually support Gen 3–5 at x4/x16 link widths for full-bandwidth external GPU connectivity.
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