Data Highways To Make For Faster Computers, NetworksData Highways To Make For Faster Computers, Networks

Industry vendors last week approved a new data transport standard that will change the way electrons move about inside PCs, servers, and networking gear and produce faster and more flexible devices. The emerging standard, developed by Intel, is designed to be a successor to PCI technology, the dominant protocol for connecting peripheral devices such as graphics, sound, and network cards to computers.

Components built to the new specification, dubbed 3GIO (third-generation input/output), will give computing devices considerably more internal bandwidth than PCI-based devices. 3GIO will move data at speeds of up to 6.6 Gbps--six times faster than PCI-X, the fastest version of PCI available. PC makers will incorporate the 3GIO specification into a new Intel I/O architecture called Arapahoe. Products based on Arapahoe should begin showing up in the latter half of 2003, according to Intel officials. Compaq, Dell, IBM, and Microsoft are backing the specification.

Meanwhile, Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc., along with co-devel-oper API NetWorks Inc., is winning industry support for its own next-gene-ration interconnect architecture, known as HyperTransport. While Intel describes 3GIO as general-purpose I/O technology, HyperTransport is aimed specifically at connecting particular components inside PCs and servers, such as cables from keyboards or disk drives, to the processor or motherboard. Backers say HyperTransport enables components to communicate with each other at speeds up to 12.8 Gbps--48 times faster than existing methods. "With processors becoming faster every day, data transport is becoming the bottleneck," says API NetWorks general manager Dave Rich.

Apple Computer, Cisco Systems, Nvidia, and Sun Microsystems are among 180 technology companies that have endorsed HyperTransport so far. Products using HyperTransport could hit the market later this year, Rich says. Intel hasn't said whether it will endorse Hyper-Transport, but company officials say they view it as complementary to 3GIO.