Editing PCI Express (section)

=== Interconnect <span class="anchor" id="LINK"></span> ===
[[File:PCI Express Terminology.svg|thumb|A PCI Express link between two devices consists of one or more lanes, which are [[dual simplex]] channels using two [[differential signaling]] pairs.<ref name="pcie-basics" />{{rp|3}}]]

PCI Express devices communicate via a logical connection called an ''interconnect''<ref name="faq1" /> or ''link''. A link is a point-to-point communication channel between two PCI Express ports allowing both of them to send and receive ordinary PCI requests (configuration, I/O or memory read/write) and [[interrupt]]s ([[Peripheral Component Interconnect#Interrupts|INTx]], [[Message Signaled Interrupts|MSI or MSI-X]]). At the physical level, a link is composed of one or more ''lanes''.<ref name="faq1" /> Low-speed peripherals (such as an [[IEEE 802.11|802.11]] [[Wi-Fi]] [[Wireless network interface card|card]]) use a single-lane (x1) link, while a graphics adapter typically uses a much wider and therefore faster 16-lane (x16) link.