THE PERIPHERAL COMPONENT INTERCONNECTION/SCALABLE COHERENT INTERFACE BRIDGE FOR DATA ACQUISITION AND COMPUTATION APPLICATIONS

COALESCING THE FRAGMENTED INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH EACH EVENT OF A HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS DETECTOR AND THEN PROCESSING IT AT THE RATES DEMANDED BY ACCELERATOR SYSTEMS ARE AMONG THE LARGEST CHALLENGES IN THE PHYSICS COMMUNITY. NEW DETECTOR SYSTEMS CONTINUE TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF MEASURED PARAMETERS AND SIMULTANEOUSLY INCREASE THE RESOLUTION OF DETECTOR COMPONENTS SO THAT THE VOLUME OF GENRATED INFORMATION IS EXPLODING. DATA ACQUISITION AND COMPUTATION SYSTEMS NOW FACE STAGGERING AMOUNTS OF DATA TO BOTH MOVE AND PROCESS. A PERIPHERAL COMPONENT INTERCONNECTION (PCI) SCALABLE COHERENT INTERFACE (SCI) BRIDGE (PSB) THAT SOLVES BOTH OF THESE DATA ACQUISITION AND COMPUTATION ISSUES WILL BE DEVELOPED. THIS BRIDGE LINKS THE HIGH PERFORMANCE PCI, THE EMERGING STANDARD FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BUS OF DESKTOP COMPUTERS, TO THE RECENTLY DEVELOPED SCI IEEE STANDARD 1596-1992. SCALABLE FARMS (GROUPS) OF INEXPENSIVE PCI-EQUIPPED DESKTOP COMPUTERS WILL CONNECT TO LARGE DETECTOR SYSTEMS THROUGH THE PSB AND THE HIGHLY CONFIGURABLE SCI NETWORK TO SATISFY DATA RATES AND TO PROCESS EVENTS FROM THOUSANDS OF DISTRIBUTED SUBYSTEMS. THE PHASE I RESEARCH WILL DEVELOP A SPECIFICATION FOR THE PCI/SCI BRIDGE FOLLOWING THE FORM OF THE PROPOSED 1596.1