(SCI) The ANSI/IEEE 1596-1992 standard that defines a point-to-point interface and a set of packetprotocols. The SCI protocols use packets with a 16-byte header and 16, 64, or 256 data bytes. Each packet is protected by a 16-bit CRC code. The standard defines 1 Gbit/secondserialfiber-optic links and 1 Gbyte/secondparallel copper links. SCI has two unidirectional links that operate concurrently. The SCI protocols support shared memory by encapsulating bus requests and responses into SCI request and response packets. Packet-based handshake protocols guarantee reliable data delivery. A set of cache coherence protocols are defined to maintain cache coherence in a {shared memory system}. Message passing is supported by a compatible subset of the SCI protocols. This protocol subset does not invoke SCI cache coherency protocols. SCI uses 64-bit addressing and the most significant 16 bits are used for addressing up to 64K nodes. http://www.uni-paderborn.de/pc2/systems/sci/. [Applications?] (1999-03-22)