The construction of high-performance systems with parallel communications, parallel processing, and/or parallel I/O demands a fast, low-cost, low-latency interconnect. It must be fast and low-latency, otherwise it will be the limiting factor in system performance; and it must be low-cost, or it will dominate the system cost. This standard has been developed to complement recent technical developments of highly integrated, low-power interconnect technology implemented in high-volume commodity VLSI processes, and to exploit the simplifications in encodings and protocols resulting from the use of relatively reliable media over relatively short distances.