Solvline PCI - Manual (Page 9)

9
About PCI
About PCI
PCI(Peripheral Component Interconnect) is a type of local bus that connects CPUs and internal
peripherals. In 1991, PCI was proposed by Intel Corporation for the first time, but now it is a
local bus standard so that PCs, and even medium and large computer systems can adopt it. A
few features of PCI bus can be summarized as follows.
The PCI is basically designed to operate at 33 MHz clock speed and 32 bit I/O. It also has an
extended 66 MHz, 64 bit I/O that accommodates Baud rates 8 times faster than the
conventional ISA bus type (8 MHz, 16 bit I/O).
Peripherals connected to the PCI bus have their own register and device information used for
setting hardware automatically. This enables users to install PCI devices with ease.
The CPU works separately from the bus master, so that the PCI bus continues to perform its
functions without waiting for the CPU even though the peripherals connected though the bus
are slow. This structure helps PCI handle much more loads at the same time.
The PCI bus has multiplexed card pins that contribute to reduce component size, making them
smaller than ISA cards and further lowering hardware costs.
PCI bus components are completely compatible with existing device drivers and applications.
That is, they only require PCI in order to control the devices and show perfect compatibility with
previously installed programs.
The PCI bus makes its surface reversely located from that of the ISA card so that it can utilize a
shared slot (using the identical guide between different bus types).
The PCI bus is the most effective supporting type for 64-bit CPU. As it has the advantage on
being compatible with the existing ISA bus, it is expected to be a standard bus type for all
computers in the future.