Embedded Control

One of the many areas that PCI has penetrated is embedded-control systems. This describes a wide range of applications that measure, test, monitor, or display data, and includes applications such as industrial control, office automation, test equipment, and imaging.

In these applications, system designers typically utilize embedded processors. In many instances, leading-edge companies will differentiate their products by utilizing some custom logic in the form of an ASIC or FPGA. A bridge is often used to translate the simple custom interface and connect it to the bus.

It is expected that the embedded-control market will quickly migrate to PCI Express, with a typical example shown in Figure B-4 on page 994. Applications such as imaging and video streaming are always hungry for bandwidth, and the additional throughput of x4 or x8 PCI Express links will translate into higher video resolution, or the handling of more video streams by the system. Others will implement PCI Express because of the noise resistance its LVDS traces provide, or because of its efficient routing and its ability to hook together subsystems through a standard cable. Still others will choose PCI Express simply because of its ubiquity.