Faster chip connections on the way

A PC standards group is set to unveil a new specification next week for high-speed connections between PC components.

A representative of the HyperTransport Consortium, a group supported by IBM, Advanced Micro Devices and other major tech companies, said the organization on Monday will announce version 2.0 of the HyperTransport standard.

The new version will be up to 75 percent faster than the original specification, according to the group, and will support PCI Express, an emerging high-speed standard for connecting PCs to peripherals and each other.

As previously reported, HyperTransport 2.0 promises to dramatically increase the speed at which data can be shoveled between chips. A 32-bit processor using the new standard could exchange data at the rate of 20 gigabytes per second, compared with a maximum rate of about 12.8 gigabytes per second for the current version of HyperTransport.

AMD has been the most influential supporter of HyperTransport, building support for the technology into its new Opteron and 64-bit Athlon processors. Other consortium members include Apple Computer, storage giant EMC and chipmakers Texas Instruments and National Semiconductor.

AMD rival Intel has backed another standard, 3GIO, an update of the current PCI standard for connecting PC components.