ALi, formerly Acer Labs, has licensed Rambus' PCI Express physical bus interface technology for use in future core logic chipset products, it said today.

PCI Express is the successor to today's PCI and AGP buses. Products incorporating the technology are expected to begin appearing on the market toward the end of the year or early 2004.

Nvidia is already expected to be preparing PCI Express versions of future graphic card reference designs for release that timeframe, and we'd be surprised if ATI isn't too.

The Rambus deal essentially allows ALi to offer chipsets that support PCI Express. All mobo makers need do is wire up the physical interface socket. PCI Express is a point-to-point, packet-based serial bus, and Rambus' RaSer cell - the technology that ALi is licensing - has been used as the basis of proven Infiniband and Ethernet interfaces. That, both companies, puts it ahead of the competition. ®