HyperTransport is a new high-speed, high-performance, point-to-point link for integrated circuits. HyperTransport provides a universal connection that is designed to reduce the number of buses within the system, provide a high-performance link for embedded applications, and enable highly scalable multiprocessing systems. It was developed to enable the chips inside of PCs, networking and communications devices to communicate with each other up to 24 times faster than with existing technologies.
Compared with existing system interconnects that provide bandwidth up to 266MB/sec, HyperTransport technology's bandwidth of 6.4GB/sec represents better than a 20-fold increase in data throughput. HyperTransport provides an extremely fast connection that complements externally visible bus standards like the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), as well as emerging technologies like InfiniBand. HyperTransport is the connection that is designed to provide the bandwidth that the new InfiniBand standard requires to communicate with memory and system components inside of next-generation servers and devices that will power the backbone infrastructure of the telecomm industry. HyperTransport technology is targeted primarily at the information technology and telecomm industries, but any application in which high speed, low latency and scalability is necessary can potentially take advantage of HyperTransport technology.
HyperTransport technology also has a unique daisy-chainable feature, giving the opportunity to connect multiple HyperTransport input/output bridges to a single channel. HyperTransport technology is designed to support up to 32 devices per channel and can mix and match components with different bus widths and speeds.
