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In a computer system, achipset is a set ofelectronic components on one or moreintegrated circuits that manages thedata flow between theprocessor,memory andperipherals. The chipset is usually found on themotherboard of computers. Chipsets are usually designed to work with a specific family ofmicroprocessors. Because it controls communications between the processor and external devices, the chipset plays a crucial role in determiningsystem performance. Sometimes the term "chipset" is used to describe asystem on chip (SoC) used in a mobile phone.[1][2]
Incomputing, the termchipset commonly refers to a set of specializedchips on acomputer'smotherboard or anexpansion card. Inpersonal computers, the first chipset for theIBM PC AT of 1984 was theNEAT chipset developed byChips and Technologies for theIntel 80286 CPU.
Inhome computers, game consoles, and arcade hardware of the 1980s and 1990s, the termchipset was used for the customaudio andgraphics chips. Examples include theOriginal Amiga chipset andSega'sSystem 16 chipset.
Inx86-based personal computers, the termchipset often refers to a specific pair of chips on the motherboard: thenorthbridge and thesouthbridge. The northbridge links the CPU to very high-speed devices, especiallyRAM andgraphics controllers, and the southbridge connects to lower-speed peripheralbuses (such asPCI orISA). In many modern chipsets, the southbridge contains some on-chipintegrated peripherals, such asEthernet,USB, andaudio devices.
Motherboards and their chipsets often come from different manufacturers. As of 2021[update], manufacturers of chipsets forx86 motherboards includeAMD,Intel,VIA Technologies andZhaoxin.
In the 1990s, a major designer and manufacturer of chipsets wasVLSI Technology in Tempe, Arizona. Some of their innovations included the integration of PCI bridge logic, the GraphiCore 2D graphics accelerator and direct support for synchronous DRAM, the forerunner ofDDR SDRAM memory.
The AppleMacintosh SE,Macintosh II and later theQuadras series used chipsets fromVLSI Technology, even though they wereASICs designed by Apple. After the switch toPowerPC, Apple used various ASIC suppliers for their chipsets such as VLSI technology,Texas Instruments,LSI Logic orLucent Technologies (later known asAgere Systems). When Apple switched to Intel they used traditional PC chipsets.
In the 1980s,Chips and Technologies pioneered the manufacturing of chipsets for PC-compatible computers. Computer systems produced since then often share commonly used chipsets, even across widely disparate computing specialties. For example, theNCR 53C9x, a low-cost chipset implementing aSCSI interface to storage devices, could be found inUnix machines such as theMIPS Magnum, embedded devices, and personal computers.
Traditionally in x86 computers, the processor's primary connection to the rest of the machine was through the motherboard chipset's northbridge. The northbridge was directly responsible for communications with high-speed devices (system memory and primary expansion buses, such as PCIe, AGP, and PCI cards, being common examples) and conversely any system communication back to the processor. This connection between the processor and northbridge is commonly designated thefront-side bus (FSB). Requests to resources not directly controlled by the northbridge were offloaded to the southbridge, with the northbridge being an intermediary between the processor and the southbridge. The southbridge handled "everything else", generally lower-speed peripherals and board functions (the largest being hard disk and storage connectivity) such as USB, parallel and serial communications. In 1990s and early 2000s, the interface between a northbridge and southbridge was the PCI bus.[3]
Before 2003, any interaction between a CPU and main memory or an expansion device such as a graphics card(s) — whetherAGP, PCI or integrated into the motherboard — was directly controlled by the northbridge IC on behalf of the processor. This made processor performance highly dependent on the system chipset, especially the northbridge's memory performance and ability to shuttle this information back to the processor. In 2003, however, AMD's introduction of theAthlon 64 series of processors[4] changed this. The Athlon 64 marked the introduction of an integrated memory controller being incorporated into the processor itself thus allowing the processor to directly access and handle memory, negating the need for a traditional northbridge to do so. Intel followed suit in 2008 with the release of itsCore i series CPUs and theX58 platform.
In newer processors integration has further increased, primarily through the inclusion of the system's primary PCIe controller and integrated graphics directly on the CPU itself. As fewer functions are left un-handled by the processor, chipset vendors have condensed the remaining northbridge and southbridge functions into a single chip. Intel's version of this is the "Platform Controller Hub" (PCH) while AMD's version was calledFusion Controller Hub (FCH). The PCH is still called a chipset.[5] This is an enhanced southbridge for the remaining peripherals—as traditional northbridge duties, such as memory controller, expansion bus (PCIe) interface and even on-board video controller, are integrated into the CPU die itself (the chipset often contains secondary PCIe connections though). However, the Platform Controller Hub was also integrated into the processor package as a second die for mobile variants of theSkylake processors.[6]
AMD's FCH has been discontinued since the release of the Carrizo series of CPUs as it has been integrated into the same die as the rest of the CPU.[7] However, since the release of the Zen architecture, there's still a component called a chipset which only handles relatively low speed I/O such as USB and SATA ports and connects to the CPU with a PCIe connection. In these systems all PCIe connections are routed directly to the CPU.[8] The UMI interface previously used by AMD for communicating with the FCH is replaced with a PCIe connection. Technically the processor can operate without a chipset; it only continues to be present for interfacing with low speed I/O.[9] AMD server CPUs adopt a self containedsystem on chip design instead which doesn't require a chipset.[10][11][12]
The northbridge to southbridge interconnect interfaces used now areDMI (Intel) andUMI (AMD). These can also be used for connecting from a processor to a chipset.
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