A technique that allows certain advanced bus architectures to delegate control of data transfers between the CPU and associated peripheral devices to an add-in board. This technique gives network interface cards (NICs) greater system bus access and higher data-transfer speeds.
In the PC, bus mastering is supported by all the common architectures except for the older Industry Standard Architecture.
See also Extended Industry Standard Architecture; Industry Standard Architecture; local bus; Microchannel Architecture; Peripheral Component Interconnect local bus.