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Routable PCIe has become the predominant cluster interconnect to build emerging composable infrastructures. Empowered by PCIe non-transparent bridge devices, PCIe transactions can traverse multiple switching domains, enabling a server to elastically integrate a number of remote PCIe devices as local ones. However, it is unclear how to move data or perform communication efficiently over the routable PCIe fabric without understanding its capabilities and limitations. This paper presents the design and implementation of rPCIeBench, a software-hardware co-designed benchmarking framework to systematically characterize the routable PCIe fabric. rPCIeBench provides flexible data communication primitives, exposes end-to-end PCIe transaction observability, and enables reconfigurable experiment deployment. Using rPCIeBench, we first analyze the communication characteristics of a routable PCIe path, quantify its performance tax, and compare it with the local PCIe link. We then use it to dissect in-fabric traffic orchestration behaviors and draw three interesting findings: approximate max-min bandwidth partition, fast end-to-end bandwidth synchronization, and interference-free among orthogonal data paths. Finally, we encode gathered characterization insights as traffic orchestration rules and develop an edge constraints relaxing algorithm to estimate PCIe flow transmission performance over a shared fabric. We validate its accuracy and demonstrate its potential to provide an optimization guide to design efficient flow schedulers. 

Abstract Aqueous trivalent metal batteries represent a compelling candidate for energy storage due to the intriguing three‐electron transfer reaction and the distinct properties of trivalent cations. However, little research progress has been achieved with trivalent batteries due to the inappropriate redox potentials and drastic ion hydrolysis side reactions. Herein, the appealing yet underrepresented trivalent indium is selected as an advanced metal choice and the crucial effect of substrate on its plating mechanism is revealed. When copper foil is used, an indiophilic indium‐copper alloy interface can be formed in situ upon plating, exhibiting favorable binding energies and low diffusion energy barriers for indium atoms. Consequently, a planar, smooth, and dense indium metal layer is uniformly deposited on the copper substrate, leading to outstanding plating efficiency (99.8–99.9%) and an exceedingly long lifespan (6.4–7.4 months). The plated indium anode is further paired with a high‐mass‐loading Prussian blue cathode (2 mAh cm⁻²), and the full cell (negative/positive electrode capacity, N/P = 2.5) delivers an excellent cycling life of 1000 cycles with 72% retention. This work represents a significant advancement in the development of high‐performance trivalent metal batteries. 

Abstract Solid‐state batteries (SSBs) are competitive contenders for energy storage due to their inherent safety and high energy. However, the lack of an appropriate anode has hindered their development. Graphite and lithium metal are widely used anode materials, but graphite suffers from a low capacity, whereas lithium metal presents severe dendrite and reactivity challenges. Herein, the promising performance of micro‐sized alloys is demonstrated as high‐capacity and long‐cycling anodes for SSBs. Using antimony as a model anode, its full theoretical capacity (660 mAh g⁻¹), high‐rate capability (3 A g⁻¹), and long cycling life (1000–2000 cycles) is achieved at room temperature. Comparative studies further reveal an overlooked “micro‐size effect”, where micro‐sized alloys establish more efficient electron/ion conduction pathways, significantly exceeding their nano‐sized counterparts. This micro‐size effect challenges the conventional belief that nano‐sized alloys always outperform micro‐sized ones. Based on this discovery, similarly high performance of other micro‐alloys (lead and bismuth) in SSBs is further demonstrated. Given the additional benefits of easy synthesis, low cost, high tap density, and high stability, micro‐sized alloys hold great promise as excellent anode candidates for SSBs.