Peripheral Component Interface: the 32-bit bus architecture (64-bit with multiplexing), developed by DEC, IBM, Intel, and others, that is widely used in Pentium-based PCs. A PCI bus provides a high-bandwidth data channel between system board components such as the CPU and devices such as hard disks and video adapters. Superseded the VL-Bus, which was widely used in 486 PCs in the early 1990s.
