The Peripheral Component Interconnect bus (better known as the PCI bus) is today's choice for high-performance desktop systems. Why? As one very important reason, it provides the data transfer bandwidth and video performance needed by today's graphically intensive desktop applications. However, its desktop roots are also visible in its physical architecture, which was designed to serve the needs of low-cost desktop computers in fairly benign environments. In order to use PCI chip technology in the world of high-performance embedded computing, a more rugged, higher reliability mechanical architecture is needed. This falls under the category of "system packaging."
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