PCI bus in high speed I/O systems applications

The Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus is an important and critical component of high performance workstations and embedded systems. Most embedded system architecture designs are based on more than one bus scheme which include a host processor bus and/or other bus schemes such as VMEbus, Industry Standard Architecture (ISA). Enhanced Industry Standard System Architecture (EISA) or a PCI bus. The PCI bus provides the wide bandwidth needed to support the high performance requirements for embedded systems applications. This paper examines bus bandwidth requirements for high performance embedded systems and a brief discussion of the benefits of the PCI bus. Applications solutions for the PCI bus in embedded systems with particular emphasis on high speed I/O data communications and networking systems are reviewed. Advanced approaches in moving I/O functionality and intelligence from the host computer to logical subsystems via the new industry specification for Intelligent I/O (I2O) are also examined.