Introduction to CPCI (Compact PCI Bus Interface Standard)

Compact PCI (Compact Peripheral Component Interconnect), also known as CPCI in Chinese, is a bus interface standard proposed by the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturer's Group (PICMG) in 1994. It is a high-performance industrial bus based on the PCI electrical specifications. The CPU and peripherals of CPCI are the same as those of standard PCI, and CPCI systems use the same chips, firewalls, and related software as traditional PCI systems. Fundamentally, they are consistent, so operating systems, drivers, and applications do not perceive any difference between the two. Converting a standard PCI card into a CPCI card requires little redesign, just physical redistribution. In order to apply the PCI SIG's PCI bus specifications to industrial control computer systems, PICMG issued the CPCI specification version 1.0 in November 1995, and subsequently introduced the PCI-PCI Bridge specification, Computer Telephony TDM specification, and User-defined I/O pin assignment specification. In short, CPCI bus = PCI bus electrical specifications + standard pin connector + European card specifications.

The emergence of CPCI not only allows the continued application of many previously PC-based technologies and mature products such as CPUs and hard disks, but also, due to significant improvements made in areas such as interfaces, enables servers and industrial control computers utilizing CPCI technology to possess advantages of high reliability and high density. CPCI is a high-performance industrial bus developed based on the PCI electrical specification, suitable for circuit board designs with 3U and 6U heights. CPCI circuit boards are inserted into the cabinet from the front, and the exit for I/O data can be either the interface on the front panel or the backplane of the cabinet. Its emergence has solved the thorny problems faced by telecommunications system engineers and equipment manufacturers for many years, such as the incompatibility between the traditional telecommunications equipment bus VME and the industrial standard PCI bus.