PCI System Architecture (Paperback)

by Tom Shanley (Author), Don Anderson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The industry handbook on the PCI data transfer standard.

From the Back Cover
Fourth Edition
now available!

"One of the major benefits of the PCI specification is that it is defined with many engineering disciplines in mind: architecture, protocol, components, board layout, and software. Mindshare's PCI System Architecture is an excellent resource for understanding all these aspects and their interrelationships."

-Todd Koelling, Applications Engineer, Intel Corporation; member of the PCI development team PCI System Architecture describes revision 2.1 of the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus specification, providing a clear, concise explanation of PCI's relationship to the rest of the system. This book has been updated and revised to include in-depth treatment of PCI to PCI bridges, the PCI BIOS, the 66MHz PCI bus, and more. PCI experts Tom Shanley and Don Anderson provide a comprehensive treatment of the bus including:

reflected-wave switching shared resource acquisition signal groups 64-bit extension bus arbitration add-in cards and connectors command set configuration read and write transfers expansion ROMs premature transaction termination cacheable memory support

This book also examines the VLSI Technology VL82C59x chipset to illustrate an example PCI bus implementation.

If you design or test hardware or software that involves the PCI bus, PCI System Architecture is an essential, time-saving tool.

The PC System Architecture Series is a crisply written and comprehensive set of guides to the most important PC hardware standards. Each title explains from a programmer's perspective the architecture, features, and operations of systems built using one particular type of chip or hardware specification.

0201409933B04062001

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Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company; 3rd edition (March 13, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201409933
• ISBN-13: 978-0201409932
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,224,413 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple, detailed, excellent., June 11, 2000

By	Robin Findley (Quincy, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: PCI System Architecture (4th Edition) (PC System Architecture Series) (Paperback)

If you're looking for an extensive guide to the hardware workings of PCI, this is THE book. I read it, then bought the PCI spec (because I needed mechanical info). After looking through the spec, I realize that PCI System Architecture covers every aspect of conceptual, and almost all detail, information that is in the spec. As far as specs go, the PCI spec is very readable, but this book turns the PCI spec into a "for dummies" book in the sense that it's so easy to follow. Numerous and overlapping examples make it clear what's going on, and by the time you're done reading, you can do this stuff in your sleep. Only things absent were: (1) Mechanical info (though for $50, you really should buy the spec), (2) How to initiate transactions (in software) from an x86 PC, particularly burst transfers.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just OK, June 24, 2001

By	habworks "habworks" (Lithonia, GA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: PCI System Architecture (4th Edition) (PC System Architecture Series) (Paperback)

Being an Electrical Engineer, and one that has already designed a PCI product (PC Card), I purchased this book as a re-fresher based on another EE comments. The book is VERY good at: Describing the many PCI based registers. Providing useful timing diagram information. Providing useful driver information tips, and explaining the "fair" nature of the PCI bus. The book is poor at: Providing useful electronic interface information. Way too wordy, but worse yet overly repetitive. Did not cover PCB layout issues. Overly focused on PC interface - what about embedded system?

The PCI bus architecture has grown to huge acceptance within the embedded world, yet this book focuses almost entirely on a PC interface. The book also fails to address the electrical characteristics of the bus. About four pages (total of 700+) are spent on the reflective wave nature of PCI. This is a lost because most EE are only familiar with an incident wave bus signal. If designing a complex embedded system with multiple loads, and PCI to PCI Bridges, you can forget about any help here when it comes to multiple transmission line reflections and PCB layout assistance. How could anyone write a "how to" book about a bus (any bus for that matter) and fail to cover the topic of bus transmission is beyond me (especially a bus that can clock up to 66MHz). WOW unbelievable! Lastly, this must have been a pay by the page deal. There are over 700+ pages (and I read most of them). Believe me, it could have been much shorter. Much of the information is repeated over, and over again (more than 2 or 3 times).

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple and very didactic, December 4, 2000

By	Avi Chami (Rishon LeZion Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: PCI System Architecture (4th Edition) (PC System Architecture Series) (Paperback)

Step by step, this book guides you over all the aspects of the PCI bus: Architecture, transactions, arbitration, PCI commands, interrupts, configuration, etc.

The book refers to both 33 and 66 MHz PCI.

The book language is clear, the diagrams are good and the division by subjects is well done.

At the beginning of every chapter, you can see a summary of the contents of the chapter, as well as a short sentence about the previous and next chapters.

NOTE: I am a hardware designer, and I think that hardware issues were well covered in the book. As I have seen from previous reviews, software designers think that there is not enough information in the book for them. Also, as already noted by other reviewers, mechanical aspects are not covered by the book.