Intel's Communication Streaming Architecture (CSA) was a mechanism used in the

Intel Hub Architecture Intel Hub Architecture (IHA), also known as Accelerated Hub Architecture (AHA) was Intel's architecture for the 8xx family of chipsets, starting in 1999 with the Intel 810. It uses a memory controller hub (MCH) that is connected to an I/O controll ...

to increase the bandwidth available between a network card and the CPU. It consists of connecting directly the network controller to the

Memory Controller Hub In computing, a northbridge (also host bridge, or memory controller hub) is one of two chips comprising the core logic chipset architecture on a PC motherboard. A northbridge is connected directly to a CPU via the front-side bus (FSB) to han ...

( northbridge), instead of to the

I/O Controller Hub I/O Controller Hub (ICH) is a family of Intel southbridge microchips used to manage data communications between a CPU and a motherboard, specifically Intel chipsets based on the Intel Hub Architecture. It is designed to be paired with a second su ...

(southbridge) through the

PCI PCI may refer to: Business and economics * Payment card industry, businesses associated with debit, credit, and other payment cards ** Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, a set of security requirements for credit card processors * Pro ...

bus, which was the common practice until that point. The technology was only used in Intel chipsets released in 2003, and was largely seen as a stop-gap measure to allow

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use i ...

chips to run at full-speed until the arrival of a faster expansion bus (it was also used to connect the

Wireless networking A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and business installations avoid the costly process of introducing c ...

chips in Intel's

Centrino Centrino is a brand name of Intel Corporation which represents its Wi-Fi and WiMAX wireless computer networking adapters. Previously the same brand name was used by the company as a platform-marketing initiative. The change of the meaning of the ...

mobile platform). To Intel's credit though, CSA-connected Ethernet chips did show consistently higher transfer rates than comparable PCI cards. The following year,

PCI Express PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common ...

replaced CSA as the method of connecting network chips in Intel's chipsets, and the technology was subsequently discontinued.

External links

Intel's page on CSA
{{comp-stub Intel products