New PCI Bus Power Management Specification Released

Intel-lead Specification Brings Increased Power Management Benefits to PCI Devices

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April. 21, 1997 — Intel Corp. today announced the publication of an industry open specification to bolster the power management capabilities to Peripheral Component Interface (PCI) add-in cards. The PCI Bus Power Management Interconnect (PCI-PM) Specification, Revision 1.0, extends power management and Plug and Play capabilities of PCI add-in devices by allowing their capabilities to be visible to the operating system. PCI add-in devices conforming to PCI-PM are expected to ship in volume in the second half of 1998.

Lead and chaired by Intel, the specification, which expands the current Revision 2.1 PCI bus architecture, was developed by the PCI SIG Power Management Workgroup in cooperation with representatives from other companies including Adaptec, Compaq and Texas Instruments.

The PCI-PM specification defines a supplemental register block, residing in PCI configuration space, for the management of four distinct PCI function power states, bus clock control, bus power control, and an interface for requesting a change in power state (wake request). An optional interface for PCI functions to report power utilization data, on a per-power-state basis, is also defined.

"The PCI-PM specification brings benefits to both corporate and home PC users," said Dan Russell, director of platform marketing at Intel Corporation. "This is a key enabling technology for Intel's Wired for Management Baseline Specification, allowing highly managed corporate PCs to wake up through the network, and for managed home PCs to wake up through a modem, for example, to provide the user with the latest Internet-based news every morning.

"The PCI Bus Power Management Interface Specification represents the latest milestone on Intel's platform power management roadmap to be completed. With ACPI, DVD drive, and now the PCI power management specifications completed, Intel will focus on standardizing power management capabilities for other elements of the PC architecture including Card Bus, USB and IEEE1394."

"The PCI Bus Power Management Interface Specification joins the seven power management class specifications announced at WinHEC 97, in support of the industry's OnNow power management initiative," said Mike Flora, technical evangelist at Microsoft Corporation.

"In addition, system wake up from PCI add-on cards, enabled by this new specification, will provide new opportunities for OnNow applications and solutions for customers."

PCI-PM is architecturally compatible with the Intel, Microsoft, Toshiba-driven Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) specification which was announced in January 1997. ACPI is an open specification that brings easy, flexible power management to a broad array of PCs, including servers, business systems and desktop computers.

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