Chipset
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A chipset is a group of integrated circuits ("chips") that are designed to work together, and are usually marketed as a single product.
In computing, the term chipset is commonly used to refer to a set of specialized chips on a computer's motherboard or an expansion card. In personal computers (PCs) based on recent Intel Pentium-class microprocessors, the term often refers to a specific pair of chips on the motherboard: the northbridge and the southbridge. The northbridge links the CPU to very high-speed devices, especially main memory and graphics controllers, and the southbridge connects to lower-speed peripheral buses (such as PCI or ISA). In many modern chipsets, the southbridge actually contains some on-chip integrated peripherals, such as Ethernet, USB, and audio devices.
The manufacturer of a chipset often is independent from the manufacturer of the motherboard. Examples of current manufacturers of PC motherboard chipsets include NVIDIA, AMD, VIA Technologies, SiS, Intel and Broadcom. In the 1980s, Chips and Technologies, founded by Filipino engineer and entrepreneur Dado Banatao (Also founder of S3 Graphics), pioneered chipset manufacturing which was aimed primarily at the PC manufacturing industry. Some server manufacturers also develop chipsets for their own products.
In home computers, game consoles and arcade game hardware of the 1980s and 1990s, the term chipset was used for the custom audio and graphics chips. Examples include the Commodore Amiga's Original Chip Set or SEGA's System 16 chipset.
Computer systems produced since the late 1980s share commonly used chipsets, even across widely disparate computing specialties. For example, the NCR 53C9x, a low-cost chipset implementing a SCSI interface to storage devices, could be found in Unix machines (such as the MIPS Magnum), embedded devices and personal computers.
*All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License