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PCI 1 - How PCI works

We concentrate on PCI 2.2 32-bits here, which is what is used in today's PCs.
Newer PCI versions include PCI 2.3 and PCI 3.0.

The PCI specification

The PCI is developed and maintained by a group called the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG in short).
Unlike the Ethernet specification, the PCI specification cannot be downloaded for free. You need to be a member of the PCI-SIG to access the specification. As becoming a member is expensive, you might want to check your company's hardware group (assuming you work in the semiconductor industry) to see if you can get access to the specification.

Otherwise here's a short introduction, followed by some links for more info.

PCI characteristics

The PCI bus has 4 main characteristics:
PCI is synchronous
The PCI bus uses one clock. The clock runs at 33MHz by default but can run lower (all the way down to idle = 0MHz) to save power, or higher (66MHz) if your hardware supports it.
PCI is Transaction/Burst oriented
PCI is transaction oriented.
  1. You start a transaction
  2. You specify the starting address (one clock cycle)
  3. You send as many data as you want (many following clock cycles)
  4. You end the transaction
PCI is a 32-bits bus, and so has 32 lines to transmit data. At the beginning of a transaction, the bus is used to specify a 32-bits address. Once the address is specified, many data cycles can go through. The address is not re-transmitted but is auto-incremented at each data cycle. To specify a different address, the transaction is stopped, and a new one started. So PCI bandwidth is best utilized in burst mode.
PCI allows bus mastering
PCI transactions work in a master-slave relationship. A master is an agent that initiates a transaction (can be a read or a write).
While the host CPU is often the bus master, all PCI boards can potentially claim the bus and become a bus master.
PCI is plug-and-play
PCI boards are plug-and-play. That means that the host-CPU/host-OS can: The last feature is an important part of plug-and-play. Each board responds to some addresses, but the addresses to which it responds can be programmed (i.e. each board generates its own board/chip-select signals). That allows the OS to "map" the address space of each board where he wants.
PCI "spaces"
PCI defines 3 "spaces" where you can read and write.
When a transaction starts, the master specifies the starting address of the transaction, if it's a read or a write, AND which space he wants to speak to.
  1. Memory space
  2. IO space
  3. Configuration space
They work as follow: To be compliant, a PCI board needs to implement configuration space. Memory and IO spaces are optional, but one or both is always used in practice.

PCI bridge

PCI devices don't connect directly to a host CPU, but go through a "bridge" chip.
That's because CPUs typically don't "speak" PCI natively, so a bridge has to translate the transactions from the CPU's bus to the PCI's bus. Also CPUs never have 3 memory spaces like PCI devices. Most CPUs have 1 space (memory space), while other CPUs have 2 (memory & IO). The bridge has to play some tricks so that the CPU can still access all 3 PCI spaces.

PCI voltage

PCI boards can use 3.3V or 5V signaling. Interestingly, current PCs all use 5V signaling.
PCI board connectors have one or two slots that identify if the board is 3.3V or 5V compliant. This is to ensure that, for example, a 3.3V only board cannot be plugged into a PC's 5V-only PCI bus.

Here an example of 5V-only board:



while this board is both 5V and 3.3V compliant:


PCI timing

PCI specifies timing related to its clock.
With a 33MHz clock, we have:

Links