BUS ARCHITECTURE

A set of parallel conductors, which

allow devices attached to it to
communicate with the CPU is called
BUS. It allows information and signals
to travel between components.

The bus consists of three main parts

• Control Lines
• Address Lines
• Data Lines
 Control lines
• These allow the CPU to
control which operations
the devices attached
should perform, I.E. read
or write.
•

• These are used to

synchronize and co
ordinate the operation of
CPU with other devices .
 Address lines
• Allows the CPU to
reference certain (Memory)
locations within the device.
Specifies the location of the
device .
•
• The number of bits in the
address bus represents the
number of physical
 Data lines
• The meaningful data
which is to be sent or
retrieved from a device
is placed on to these
lines.
•
• The size of a data bus
is typically 8, 16, 32, and
Microprocessor is attached to the
devices with the help of three
buses
• The Bus is set to run at a
specified speed which is
measured in MHz .
•
• The main differences among
buses are amount of data
transfer & the speeds so
BUS is always differentiated
or given a different name on
the basis of their speed,
devices with which BUS is
 CPU, front side and back side bus

•
 The System Bus
• The system bus is a series of
high-bandwidth pathways that
connect the CPU to memory, the
level 2 (L2) cache and the I/O
buses.
• The purpose of the system bus is
to get information to and from the
CPU at the fastest rate possible. As
a result, the system bus is the
fastest bus in the computer, with
speeds up to 800 MHz on current
motherboards.
• The systems bus actually
consists of several buses,
connected by several controller
chips as follows:
• The front side bus is actually a
combination of 2 other buses:
• The processor bus is the highest-
level communication pathway
between the CPU and the
Northbridge chip;
• The memory bus is a direct
pathway between the memory
•
The backside bus is a special
bus that connects the CPU to the
level 2 (L2) cache. (Both of which
are often packaged together in
the same module). 
•

• As a result, this bus is also

called the cache bus. Unlike the
rest of the system bus
components, the cache bus is a
dedicated bus that runs at or
near the CPU speed, achieving
Understanding buses
• When buses terminates on the
motherboard ,a slot/port is placed to
provide connectivity between bus
and the card which will be attached
with the slot and as a result a path
will be provided from circuit to CPU
with the help of BUS.
•

• Various developments took place

in terms of speed and width of bus
i.e. 16bit, 32 bit etc and accordingly
they were given different name.
•

• The slot that is placed on the bus

to provide connectivity is known as
 Data width & Cycle
•
The data rate
width and cycle
rate are used to determine
the bandwidth, or the total
amount of data that the bus
can transmit.
•

• An 8-bit bus (1-byte data

width) that operates at a cycle
rate of 1,000 MHz (1,000,000
 Device management &
• The
Type
device-management
specification indicates the maximum
number of supported devices and
the difficulty of configuring them.
• There are two types of bus
communications, serial and parallel.
• On a parallel bus, all devices have
their own interface to the bus, which
is the norm.
• Serial devices are tied together in,
well, a series; the last one has to
talk “through” the first one.
VARIOUS TYPES OF BUSES
 Introduction with various
Expansion BUS/slots
• Expansion slots are
compartments in a PC into
which you can plug
Expansion Cards such as a
video or sound card &
connect them to the system
bus.
•
• Most PC's have from 3 to 8
• Expansion slots for PCs
come in two basic sizes:
half- and full-size.
• Half-size slots are also
called 8-bit slots because
they can transfer 8 bits at
a time.
• Full-size slots are
sometimes called 16-bit
slots. In addition, modern
PCs include PCI slots for
• An expansion card in
computing is a printed circuit
board that can be inserted into
an expansion slot of a
computer motherboard to add
additional functionality to a
computer system.
•
• One edge of the expansion card
holds the contacts that fit
exactly into the slot.
•
• They establish the electrical
 ISA Expansion slots

• Industry Standard
Architecture (in practice
almost always shortened
to ISA) was a computer
bus standard for IBM
compatible computers.
•

• introduced in 1981 with

original IBM PC
ISA Slots
• Starting in the early 90s, ISA began
to be replaced by the PCI local bus
architecture.
• Most computers made today include
both an AT bus for slower devices
and a PCI bus for devices that need
better bus performance.
• In 1993, Intel and Microsoft
introduced a new version of the ISA
specification called Plug and Play
ISA.
• Plug and Play ISA enables the
operating system to configure
expansion boards automatically so
that users do not need to fiddle
with DIP switches and jumpers.
 Micro Channel
Architecture(MCA)
• proprietary 16- or 32-bit
parallel computer bus
• created by IBM in the 1980s
for use on their new PS/2
computers.
• MCA was primarily a 32-bit
bus, but the system also
supported a 16-bit mode
• designed to lower the cost of
connectors and logic in Intel-
based machines like the IBM
MCA Card
 EISA
•
Extended Industry Standard
Architecture
•

• Bus architecture designed for PCs using

an Intel 80386, 80486, or Pentium
microprocessor.
•

• EISA buses are 32 bits wide and

support multiprocessing.
•

• The principal difference between EISA

and MCA is that EISA is backward
EISA Slots
 PCI Expansion Slots
• The Peripheral Component
Interconnect(PCI)
• computer bus for attaching
peripheral devices to a
computer motherboard.
•
• Typical PCI cards used :
•
• network cards, sound cards,
modems, extra ports such as
PCI Slots
• Many common PCI card devices are
now integrated into motherboards
• It can run at clock speeds of 33 or 66
MHz at 32 bits, it yields a
throughput rate of 133 Mbps.
• In a typical system, the firmware (or
operating system) queries all PCI
buses at startup time (via PCI
Configuration Space) to find out
what devices are present and what
system resources (memory space,
I/O space, interrupt lines, etc.)
each needs.
 PCI Express
• PCI Express, officially abbreviated as
PCI-E or PCIe,
• computer expansion card interface
format introduced by Intel in 2004.
• PCI Express was designed to replace
the general-purpose PCI expansion
bus, the high-end PCI-X bus and the
AGP graphics card interface.
• In PCI 1.1 (currently the most
common version) each lane sends
information at a rate of 250 MB/s
(250 million bytes per second) in
PCIeX4, PCIeX16, PCIeX1, PCIeX16 and PCI
• Each PCIe slot carries either one, two,
four, eight, sixteen or thirty-two lanes
of data between the motherboard and
the card.
• Lane counts are written with an x
prefix e.g. x1 for a single-lane card
and x16 for a sixteen-lane card.
• Thirty-two lanes of 250 MB/s (PCIe 1.1)
gives a maximum transfer rate of 8
GB/s (250 MB/s x 32, i.e., 8 billion
bytes per second) in each direction.
• However the largest size in common
use for PCIe 1.1 is x16, giving a
transfer rate of 4 GB/s (250 MB/s x
16) in each direction.
• Single lane for PCIe 1.1 has nearly
twice the data rate of normal PCI, a
four-lane slot has a transfer rate
A 32- bit PCI card
 AGP Expansion Slots
• Accelerated Graphics Port
• Interface specification developed
by Intel Corporation.
• AGP is based on PCI, but is
designed especially for the
throughput demands of 3-D graphics.
• Rather than using the PCI bus for
graphics data, AGP introduces a
dedicated point-to-point channel so
that the graphics controller can
directly access main memory.
• 32 bits wide and runs at 66 MHz.
• This translates into a total
bandwidth of 266 MBps; as opposed
An AGP Slot
•
In addition, AGP allows 3-D
textures to be stored in main
memory rather than video memory.
•

• AGP has a few important system

requirements as:
• The chipset must support AGP.
• The motherboard must be equipped
with an AGP bus slot or must have
an integrated AGP graphics
system.
• The operating system must be the
OSR 2.1 version of Windows 95,
Windows 98 or Windows NT 4.0.
And currently, many professional
 PCMCIA
• Personal Computer Memory Card
International Association.
• Designed to provide a way of
expanding the memory in a small,
handheld computer.
• The PCMCIA was organized to provide
a standard way of expanding
portable computers.
• The PCMCIA bus has been recently
renamed as PC card.
• Three major types of PC cards (and
slots) in use today.
• Type I-commonly used for memory
cards,
A P C M C IA PCMCIA Slots
C a rd
 Universal Serial Bus
• Any computer comes with one or
more Universal Serial Bus
connectors on the back.
• These USB connectors let you attach
everything from mice to printers to
your computer quickly and easily.
• The operating system supports USB
• USB devices are incredibly simple.
• Many USB devices are present in the
market
• The Universal Serial Bus gives you a
single, standardized, easy-to-use
Various types of USB
connectors
 USB Features
• The computer acts as the host.
• Up to 127 devices can connect to the
host, either directly or by way of
USB hubs.
• Individual USB cables can run as
long as 5 meters; switch hubs,
devices can be up to 30 meters (six
cables' worth) away from the host.
• With USB 2.0, the bus has a
maximum data rate of 480
megabits per second.
• A USB cable has two wires for power
 USB Features
• On the power wires, the computer can
supply up to 500 milliamps of power
at 5 volts.
• Low-power devices (such as mice) can
draw their power directly from the
bus. High-power devices (such as
printers) have their own power
supplies and draw minimal power
from the bus. Hubs can have their
own power supplies to provide power
to devices connected to the hub.
• USB devices are hot swappable,
meaning you can plug them into the
bus and unplug them any time.
 AMR and CNR
§ Some newer motherboards
feature a special connector called
an Audio Modem Riser (AMR) or a
Communication and Networking
Riser (CNR).
§ These are dedicated connectors
for cards that are specific to the
motherboard design to offer
communications and networking
options.
§ They are not designed to be
general-purpose bus interfaces,
Riser slot on motherboard marked
by red lines
 Audio Modem Riser
• Audio Modem Riser (AMR) is a
specification developed by Intel for
packaging the analog I/O audio
functions of modem circuitry together
with a CODEC chip (which converts
back and forth from analog to digital)
on a small board that plugs directly
into a computer's motherboard.
• The small board is called a riser
because it rises above the
motherboard rather than laying flatly
on it.
• Having this circuitry on a riser means
that it doesn't have to be part of the
motherboard itself.
 Communication and
•
Networking Riser
Communication and Networking Riser (CNR),
which was developed by Intel, is an open
industry standard for a scalable riser card,
which is a hardware device that plugs into a
motherboard and holds chips for functions
like modems and audio devices.
• The CNR architecture and electrical,
mechanical, and thermal requirements of the
riser interface are defined in the
specification.
• The specification was developed for products
used to implement low-cost local area
network (LAN), modem, and audio
subsystems and supports broadband, multi-
channel audio, V.90 analog modem, and
Ethernet-based networking, and can be
expanded upon to meet the requirements of
developing technologies, such as DSL.
• In addition to cost benefits, CNR has the
capacity to minimize electrical noise
Riser socket
 Fire wire IEEE 1394
• IEEE 1394, High Performance Serial
Bus, for connecting devices to your
personal computer.
• FireWire provides a single plug-and-
socket connection on which up to
63 devices can be attached with
data transfer speeds up to 400
Mbps (megabits per second).
• The standard describes a serial bus
or pathway between one or more
peripheral devices and your
computer's microprocessor.
F ire w ire Fire wire sockets
co n n e cto rs
• FireWire and other IEEE 1394
implementations provide:
• A simple common plug-in serial
connector on the back of your
computer and on many different
types of peripheral devices A thin
serial cable rather than the thicker
parallel cable you now use to your
printer, for example
• A very high-speed rate of data transfer
that will accommodate multimedia
applications (100 and 200 megabits
per second today; with much higher
rates later)
• Hot-plug and Plug and Play capability
without disrupting your computer
• The ability to chain devices together in
a number of different ways without
•
• In time, IEEE 1394 implementations are
expected to replace and consolidate
today's serial and parallel interfaces,
including Centronics parallel, RS-
232C, and Small Computer System
Interface (SCSI).
• The first products to be introduced
with FireWire include digital cameras,
digital video disks (DVDs), digital
video tapes, digital camcorders, and
music systems.
• Because IEEE 1394 is a peer-to-peer
interface, one camcorder can dub to
another without being plugged into a
computer.
Fire wire socket in a DV
camcorder
?