Computer Bus and BackPlane Design

The table provides a list comparing the different types of data buses. Both serial and parallel buses are detailed. Color-coding of the table groups buses with similar structures or function.

The first column gives the "common" name of the bus.

Depending on the bus type, either data rate or throughput is given in the second column.
Clocked buses are shown with the clock rate [as data rate], while buses that allow hand shaking are listed with through-put, bits/bytes per second as the data rate ['b'= bits, 'B'= Bytes].
Many of the serial buses are listed by Baud-rate.
The data rate numbers will normally be best case; requiring shortest cable distance, no wait states, optimal communication between devices and so on.

The next column called 'Type' is really the width of the bus in bits. Fiber, Balanced, Unbalanced, and Differential are all types of serial buses.
However all the new "serial" buses may grow in width by providing [sending/receiving] multiple serial paths.

A short description of the bus is provided, followed by the bus topology column. Than the nominal bus voltage level is listed

The two columns to the far right indicate the physical nature of the bus; back plane, cable, fiber...
The acronyms UTP [Un-shielded Twisted Pair], and STP [Shielded Twisted Pair] are indicated for some of the serial buses. Some of the parallel buses just use this column for more detail.
You can either go to a particular bus page by using the Bus Specifications link, or by following the link provided for each bus type below.
A link is not always given for each bus version, only because they would all point to the same page.

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