CA exam 1

80

The difference between SCSI and PCI.

The PCI bus is designed to be a parallel interface. Each device plugged in uses an IRQ or interrupt request to access the cpu and perform its function. Usually designed for modem cards, network cards or any number of other add in's. The bus used is direct to the south bridge chip, that controls input and output to the cpu. One request line and one grant line.  Arbitration determines which device get the control of the bus.

The SCSI is only used for storage devices like hard drives. An older technology, it used to be the fastest, but the IDE devices are now exceeding its speed. It is a parallel/serial type of bus. Devices are plugged in parallel on the bus, but a device must be placed on the end to give a serial signal back to the controller. Physical order determines the priority of the devices. Daisy chaining


Both use the south bridge as its controller, but SCSI must have an interface controller to connect to the bridge. I would say in short, both are parallel connections, both use IRQ and DMA access to synchronize. Devices one each bus, only request access on the bus, so are independent of each other and not synchronized as such. Arbitration is achieved by the south bridge chip, controlling input and output to external devices.