A very-high-density cable interconnect (VHDCI) is a 68-pin connector that was introduced in the SPI-2 document of SCSI-3. The VHDCI connector is a very small connector that allows placement of four wide SCSI connectors on the back of a single PCI card slot. Physically, it looks like a miniature

Centronics Centronics Data Computer Corporation was an American manufacturer of computer printers, now remembered primarily for the parallel interface that bears its name, the Centronics connector. History Foundations Centronics began as a division ...

type connector. It uses the regular 68-contact pin assignment. The male connector (plug) is used on the cable and the female connector ("receptacle") on the device.

Other uses

Apart from the standardized use with the SCSI interface, several vendors have also used VHDCI connectors for other types of interfaces: *

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

: for an external PCI Express 8-lane interconnect, and used in

Quadro Plex The Nvidia Quadro Plex is an external graphics processing unit ''(Visual Computing System)'' designed for large-scale 3D visualizations. The system consists of a box containing a pair of high-end Nvidia Quadro graphics cards featuring a variety ...

VCS and in Quadro NVS 420 as
display port connector
*

ATI Technologies ATI Technologies Inc. (commonly called ATI) was a Canadian semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technology Inc., ...

: on the FireMV 2400 to convey two

DVI Digital Visual Interface (DVI) is a video display interface developed by the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG). The digital interface is used to connect a video source, such as a video display controller, to a display device, such as a comp ...

and two

VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...

signals on a single connector, and ganging two of these connectors side by side in order to allow the FireMV 2400 to be a low-profile quad display card. The Radeon X1950 XTX Crossfire Edition also used a pair of the connectors to grant more inter-card bandwidth than the PCI Express bus allowed at the time for

Crossfire A crossfire (also known as interlocking fire) is a military term for the siting of weapons (often automatic weapons such as assault rifles or sub-machine guns) so that their arcs of fire overlap. This tactic came to prominence in World War I. S ...

. *

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...

: Some Visiontek variants of the Radeon HD 7750 use a VHDCI connector alongside a Mini

DisplayPort DisplayPort (DP) is a digital display interface developed by a consortium of PC and chip manufacturers and standardized by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). It is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device su ...

to allow a 5 (breakout to 4

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...

+1 mDP) display Eyefinity array on a low profile card. VisionTek also released a similar Radeon HD 5570, though it lacked a Mini DisplayPort. *

Juniper Networks Juniper Networks, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company develops and markets networking products, including routers, switches, network management software, network security product ...

: for their 12- and 48-port 100Base-TX PICs (physical interface cards). The cable connects to the VHDCI connector on the PIC on one end, via an RJ-21 connector on the other end, to an RJ-45

patch panel A patch panel is a device or unit featuring a number of jacks, usually of the same or similar type, for the use of connecting and routing circuits for monitoring, interconnecting, and testing circuits in a convenient, flexible manner. Patch ...

. *

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

: 3750 StackWise stacking cables *

National Instruments National Instruments Corporation, doing business as NI, is an American multinational company with international operation. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it is a producer of automated test equipment and virtual instrumentation software. C ...

: on their high-speed digital I/O card

* AudioScience uses VHDCI to carry multiple analog

balanced audio Balanced audio is a method of interconnecting audio equipment using balanced interfaces. This type of connection is very important in sound recording and production because it allows the use of long cables while reducing susceptibility to external ...

and digital

AES/EBU AES3 is a standard for the exchange of digital audio signals between professional audio devices. An AES3 signal can carry two channels of pulse-code-modulated digital audio over several transmission media including balanced lines, unbalanced l ...

audio streams, and clock and

GPIO A general-purpose input/output (GPIO) is an uncommitted digital signal pin on an integrated circuit or electronic circuit (e.g. MCUs/ MPUs ) board which may be used as an input or output, or both, and is controllable by software. GPIOs have no ...

signals.

References

Electrical signal connectors Analog video connectors Digital display connectors Networking hardware SCSI {{Compu-hardware-stub

Other uses

See also

References