US Patent 7783818 Modularized interconnect between root complexes and I/O modules

Described are electronics enclosures having an I/O (input/output) module, a CPU (central processing unit) module having a root complex, and a pluggable, field-replaceable interconnect module electrically connected to the root complex of the CPU module by a first set of differential signal pairs and to the I/O module by a second set of differential signal pairs. The field-replaceable interconnect module provides a serialized communication path between the first and second sets of differential signal pairs for carrying serialized differential signaling corresponding to communications exchanged between the root complex of the CPU module and the I/O module.