I am looking into some PCI document for the development board I have, in PCI section it mentions a lot a word, "host bridge", what exactly does this mean? Google only gives me a bunch of products, I want to know where I can find the terminlogy explanation.
Thanks.
I'm sure that people more experienced that I will correct me, but when I was working with PCI, on the platform that I worked with the "host-bridge" was an IC that served as bridge between the PowerPC data bus and the PCI data bus.
That's the right general idea. More commonly, the implementation only takes up part of a chip, such as one of the support chips in an Intel architecture PC, or it's just built into the processor, like in the more highly integrated PPC chips. But it is indeed a bus conversion from a processor bus to a PCI bus. Lets a bus-master PCI card access memory on the other side.
The "Host Bridge" is what connects the tree of PCI busses (which are internally connected with PCI-to-PCI Bridges) to the rest of the system. Usually the processor(s) and memory are on the "other" side of the Host Bridge.
On typical PC implementations, this function is embedded in the North Bridge.
David Kinsell wrote: : That's the right general idea. More commonly, the implementation only takes : up part of a chip, such as one of the support chips in an Intel architecture PC, : or it's just built into the processor, like in the more highly integrated PPC chips. : But it is indeed a bus conversion from a processor bus to a PCI bus. Lets a : bus-master PCI card access memory on the other side. : : : "??$?"
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