Project Title:
    The High Speed PCI Connector (HSPC)

Abstract:
    The biggest cause of low performance in computer systems is the time it takes
    to execute I/O and memory functions from peripheral devices such as LAN,
    modems and SCSI. One approach to solve this problem has been the movement of
    peripheral devices from lower to higher performance buses. The PCI
    (Peripheral Component Interconnect) is the latest bus architecture and is
    quickly becoming the standard. 
    Until recently the 32 bit, 33 MHz, 5V compliant expansion slot was the
    implementation favoured by most PC vendors. In certain recent PC
    configurations the PCI slot have migrated to a wider bus (64 bits) and faster
    configurations (66 MHz), although some configurations don't implement both
    features. The PCI bus will only run at the speed and width of the slowest PCI
    card attached to the bus. A slow card will create a bottleneck in the system
    and can drastically reduce the PCI effectiveness.

    The HSPC (High Speed PCI Connector) is a circuit board which will enable
    devices such as LAN cards or custom devices, such as cards connecting slot
    machines to a database, to hook up to the 66 MHz/64 bit PCI bus. This will
    enable these devices to have a higher rate of data transfer with the
    computer.

Faculty advisor(s):
    Shawki Areibi/Medhat Moussa

Students:
  Greg Callow
  Patrick O'Keefe