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MOST technology enables in-vehicle consumer devices such as DVD players, MP3 players, GPS systems, car phones and Bluetooth devices, among others, to work seamlessly as a single system rather than independent devices each requiring their own control. It does not only include the physical connection between devices, but also defines properties and methods for devices to interact with each other.
Media Oriented Systems Transport (MOST®) defines the protocol, hardware, and software layers necessary to allow for transport of control, real-time, and packet data in an efficient and low cost way using a single medium. Current mediums in use ("physical layer") are fiber optics and unshielded twisted pair cables (UTP). MOST supports various speed grades: 25 Mbit/s and 50 Mbit/s with higher speed grades upcoming.
The following chapters summarize the key advantages of MOST:
Ease of use
- Simple connectors
- No hum loops, low radiation, and high electromagnetic susceptibility
- Plug and play; self identifying devices with auto initialization
- Dynamically attachable and re-configurable devices
- Virtual network management including channel allocation, system monitoring addressing and power management
Wide application range
- Applications from a few kbps to several dozens of Mbit/s
- High degree of data integrity with low jitter
- Support of asynchronous and synchronous data transfer
- Support of up to 64 devices in one ring
- Simultaneous transmission of multiple data streams such as control, packet and real-time information
- Devices can be constructed out of multiple functions
- Low overhead due to embedded network management
Synchronous bandwidth
- Synchronous channels provide guaranteed bandwidth with no buffering required
- 25 Mbit/s or 50 Mbit/s synchronous data throughput - higher speed grades upcoming
Asynchronous bandwidth
- Variable asynchronous data throughput
- Up to 15 Mbit/s asynchronous data
- Dedicated control channel with more than 700 kbps
Flexibility
- Wide range of real-time channel sizes and packet sizes
- Remote operation and flow control
- Real time transmission and predictable delay through fair arbitration mechanism
- Transparent transport of various protocols (e.g. TCP / IP)
- Protocol independent and object-oriented
Synergy with consumer and PC industry
- Operates with or without PC
- Consistent with PC streaming and plug and play standards
- Simple and powerful connectivity through MediaLB interchip bus
Low implementation cost
- Suitable for implementation in cost sensitive peripherals
- Optimized for use with several physical layers
- Uses standardized connectors and media e.g., low cost Plastic Optical Fiber or Unshielded Twisted Pair
- Highly integrated system-on-a-chip IC implementations available
MOST technology includes the software interfaces that allow applications running on different devices to communicate and exchange information. It also defines a transport mechanism that sets up a link for streaming data between devices. This link requires very low overhead so that most of the network bandwidth is available for the actual data that needs to be transmitted. As a result of this minimal overhead, the network efficiency is very high.
MOST also defines hardware interfaces needed to communicate. By using e.g., fiber optics, the network infrastructure cost is reduced. In addition the synchronous nature of the hardware interface reduces costs by eliminating the need for buffering and signal processing at each node. It also eliminates the need for processing packet information required by other networking technologies that transport streaming data within these packets. The ring topology results in the lowest number of connections needed to implement the network. Other topologies are supported.