ATAPI is the short form of Advanced Technology Attachment with Packet Interface. This is a type of interface connection which is used for connecting the hard drives like motherboard, RAM, CD- ROM and other components inside the CPU’s of the personal computer.
ATAPI is a standard which has been developed by Western Digital and the maintenance of this standard is done by the International Committee for Information Technology Standards which is also known as X3. ATAPI has evolved from ATA interface.
But further technological development has evolved the Serial ATA interface in 2003 which is an improved version of ATAPI. The serial ATA is also known as parallel ATA (PATA). Technological development is going on at rapid speed so in the year 2007 PATA has been replaced with SATA which is Serial ATA that is utilized in most of the new systems.
ATAPI was introduced by Small Form Factor committee. The introduction of ATAPI enhanced the functioning of ATA which could be now used for other devices besides the hard drives.
Working of ATAPI
ATAPI was developed in 1986 to remove the short comings of ATA which could connect only hard drives but ATAPI can connect removable medias like CD-ROMS and DVDS. The ATAPI is a protocol which allows ATA interface to carry the SCSI responses and commands as the SCSI is packed in the ATAPI packet.
The ATAPI cable has forty ribbons which are tightly packed, as its width. The ribbons terminate into forty pins which are at the either end of the width. The pins are plugged into sockets which have the same number of cylindrical protrusions which open only on one end.
Though the ATAPI system was used for several years there were some drawbacks in ATA. The main limitation in ATA which was the ATA cable standard permitted the use of cable which had the length of eighteen inches only though cable of that were thirty six inches long were available in the market. Due to this limitation the cable was used only for internal wiring.
Later on the modified version of ATAPI was developed which could transfer data at the speed of hundred and hundred thirty three megabytes per second.
The ATAPI is also used as an interface with Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) which transfers data at high speed so the speed of ATAPI in transferring the data has also increased. The first interface of ATAPI developed by the Western Digital was brought out under the name Integrated Drive Electronics.
