New PCI standard soon to replace AGP
United States--The arrival of the Intel-proposed AGP port was meant to complement PCI by being the dedicated interface for graphics acceleration. However, the AGP will come to its bottleneck with the arrival of the 8X graphics acceleration chips, and it is possible that the 8X AGP will be its last incarnation.
As higher bandwidth requirements emerge for graphics applications, a new chip interface to replace the AGP port will be needed. The most probable solution is a PCI Express interface (formerly 3GIO or third generation I/O). The PCI Express can deliver bandwidths of up to 8Gbps per channel, about twice the bandwidth for an 8X AGP Pro interface. Another advantage of the PCI Express is that it is scalable for more channels and higher frequencies when required to address applications that demand higher bandwidths.
The PCI Special Interest Group, headed by top computer firms like IBM, Intel and HP have been defining new I/O interface standards that meet the growing bandwidth requirements of the world.
Rich Baek, executive director of the PCI SIG, revealed that PCI Express and PCI-X 2.0 will be the two mainstream I/O interfaces for PC products by 2005. The PCI-X 2.0 can support technologies for server environments like 2 and 4 Gigabit Fiber Channel, Ultra640 SCSI and 10 Gigabit Ethernet. According to Baek, products supporting PCI Express, like mobile and desktop computers, and products based on PCI-X 2.0, like high-end desktops and servers, will emerge in 2003.
Taiwan has about 90 member companies in the PCI SIG, the third largest delegation of members after the United States and Japan. Members pay $3,000 a year to avail of firsthand technical information and the right to vote on a proposed specification. Baek has encouraged more (Taiwan) companies to join the SIG and obtain updated information for PCI. "We hold free compliance workshops and developer's conferences around the world for our members. Taiwan has been one of the most important developing centers."
