View source for Intel Communication Streaming Architecture

{{unsourced|date=September 2019}}
{{original research|date=March 2010}}
{{distinguish|Intel Configurable Spatial Accelerator}}
Intel's '''Communication Streaming Architecture''' ('''CSA''') was a mechanism used in the [[Intel Hub Architecture]] 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]] ([[northbridge (computing)|northbridge]]), instead of to the [[I/O Controller Hub]] (southbridge) through the [[Conventional PCI|PCI]] 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]] chips to run at full-speed until the arrival of a faster expansion bus (it was also used to connect the [[Wireless networking]] chips in Intel's [[Centrino]] 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]] replaced CSA as the method of connecting network chips in Intel's chipsets, and the technology was subsequently discontinued.

==External links==
* [http://www.intel.com/design/network/events/idf/csa.htm Intel's page on CSA] [https://web.archive.org/web/20061111030931/http://www.intel.com/design/network/events/idf/csa.htm archive]

{{Intel technology}}

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[[Category:Intel products]]