(PCI) A standard for connecting peripherals to a personal computer, designed by Intel and released around Autumn 1993. PCI is supported by most major manufacturers including Apple Computer. It is technically far superior to VESA' s local bus. It runs at 20 - 33 MHz and carries 32 bits at a time over a 124-pin connector or 64 bits over a 188-pin connector. An address is sent in one cycle followed by one word of data (or several in burst mode). PCI is used in systems based on Pentium, Pentium Pro, {AMD 5x86}, {AMD K5} and {AMD K6} processors, in some {DEC Alpha} and PowerPC systems, and probably Cyrix 586 and {Cyrix 686} systems. However, it is processor independent and so can work with other processor architectures as well. Technically, PCI is not a bus but a bridge or mezzanine. It includes buffers to decouple the CPU from relatively slow peripherals and allow them to operate asynchronously. (1997-12-07)
