This paper describes AMD?s Hyper Transport? technology, a new I/O architecture for personal computers, workstations, servers, high-performance networking and communications systems, and embedded applications. This scalable architecture can provide significantly increased bandwidth over existing bus architectures and can simplify in-the-box connectivity by replacing legacy buses and bridges. The programming model used in Hyper Transport technology is compatible with existing models and requires little or no changes to existing operating system and driver software.

The demand for faster processors, memory and I/O is a familiar refrain in market applications ranging from personal computers and servers to networking systems and from video games to office automation equipment. Data centers used for data mining, databases, and server networks providing web pages and clusters have all greatly changed the business world, allowing for unprecedented growth. However, as the world economy grows, it demands more of its IT infrastructure. Data must be communicated faster and more reliably as the world depends on servers more, and as development and growth become more complex.