Chipset

With chipset is generally referred to several group of integrated circuits that meet along a specific task. Usually it does not make sense to use only individual chips from the totality of a chipset. It usually speak only technical reasons to the contrary, all functionality to accommodate a chip - for example, constraints on the complexity of a chip, the number of ports of a chip package or different requirements of individual circuit parts that can be realized by different semiconductor manufacturing processes ( eg HF - and baseband processing).

History

At the first home computers and personal computers, the system was besides the microprocessor typically consist of a series of stand-alone interface chips, all of which hung above address, data and control bus directly to the processor; a simple address decoder chip would select the intended meaning chip. With the progress of integration more and more of these distributed functions have been combined into larger chips. In this case, certain quasi- standards were out.

PC chipset

Specifically, the chipset is meant on a PC motherboard that supports a microprocessor with its task. Reason for the distribution to several circuits in this case is the number of electrical connections required.

The first chipset for the IBM PC was the NEAT chipset for the Intel 80286 Chips & Technologies. Today chipsets usually consist introduced by Intel dual - bridge architecture, consisting of North Bridge and South Bridge. The names are derived from the usual position of the chips onto a motherboard. The North Bridge is located ( for vertical installation of the board as in Tower enclosures usual) mostly in the upper half of the board, ie in the " north" (English " north" ), while the Southbridge is usually installed underneath, so in the "South " ( engl. " south" ).

The two chips are used to control and for data transfer of the various components of the motherboard and the peripheral device. In general, the Northbridge functions are faster in more complex chip, integrated as in the South Bridge. Therefore, further functions are in some chipsets in the South Bridge integrated, such as the generation of sound or video signals.

The main manufacturers of chipsets for x86 -compatible architectures today are Intel (Intel ICH), VIA Technologies, Nvidia, SiS, AMD, ULi, ALi and ATI, for server computer also Broadcom.

The division of functions on the two sub- chips Northbridge and Southbridge varies slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer. So there is also the variant that the Northbridge also includes the PCI interface and the PCI slots are operated by and the Southbridge via this interface is connected to the North Bridge.

In the course of further miniaturization progresses the division into two chips has recently also been repealed, see in Southbridge. More and more manufacturers offer " one-chip chipsets " at.

Chip-set at the Commodore Amiga

The Amiga computer by Commodore brought a slightly different definition of the chipset. Here it was mainly the multimedia capabilities of graphics and sound, which should be treated with priority. The chipset of the Amiga was distributed at the beginning of the 1980s on three chips because of the limited production capabilities, but was seen as a unit. It was based on a powerful DMA unit, which supplied the rest with video and sound data, in addition of the usual external interfaces. For details see original chip set.

Chipset of the Atari ST

The chipset of the Atari ST computer from Atari consisted of four chips, the so-called custom chips. These were: DMA, Shifter, MMU and Glue. Later, the blitter came as other smart to do so.