dslreports logo

DMA or Direct Memory Access is a method of transferring data between a device and memory without CPU involvement. This way is faster. Also, the CPU can do other computation in the mean-time.

There are 2 DMA controllers in a PC, each providing 4 channels. Since one channel is used to connect the master DMA controller to the slave DMA controller there are 4 8-bit and 3 16-bit available channels. One channel can be used by one hardware device only.

Also see This page at TechTarget.com


Expand got feedback?

by redxii See Profile edited by dbmaven See Profile
last modified: 2003-10-27 00:08:53