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43-414: In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components on one or more integrated circuits that manages the data flow between the processor , memory and peripherals . The chipset is usually found on the motherboard of computers. Chipsets are usually designed to work with a specific family of microprocessors . Because it controls communications between the processor and external devices,

86-453: A bandwidth of 3200 megabytes per second (MB/s): The number of transfers per clock cycle depends on the technology used. For example, GTL+ performs 1 transfer/cycle, EV6 2 transfers/cycle, and AGTL+ 4 transfers/cycle. Intel calls the technique of four transfers per cycle Quad Pumping . Many manufacturers publish the frequency of the front-side bus in MHz, but marketing materials often list

129-417: A chipset; it only continues to be present for interfacing with low speed I/O. AMD server CPUs adopt a self contained system on chip design instead which doesn't require a chipset. The northbridge to southbridge interconnect interfaces used now are DMI ( Intel ) and UMI ( AMD ). These can also be used for connecting from a processor to a chipset. Electronic components Electronic components have

172-491: A device that is in itself used as a component Passive components that use piezoelectric effect: Devices to make electrical connection Electrical cables with connectors or terminals at their ends Components that can pass current ("closed") or break the current ("open"): Passive components that protect circuits from excessive currents or voltages: On a circuit diagram , electronic devices are represented by conventional symbols. Reference designators are applied to

215-446: A more restrictive definition of passivity . When only concerned with the energy of signals , it is convenient to ignore the so-called DC circuit and pretend that the power supplying components such as transistors or integrated circuits is absent (as if each such component had its own battery built in), though it may in reality be supplied by the DC circuit. Then, the analysis only concerns

258-529: A number of electrical terminals or leads . These leads connect to other electrical components, often over wire, to create an electronic circuit with a particular function (for example an amplifier , radio receiver , or oscillator ). Basic electronic components may be packaged discretely, as arrays or networks of like components, or integrated inside of packages such as semiconductor integrated circuits , hybrid integrated circuits , or thick film devices. The following list of electronic components focuses on

301-466: A preset multiplier setting into the chip. It is possible to unlock some locked CPUs; for instance, some AMD Athlon processors can be unlocked by connecting electrical contacts across points on the CPU's surface. Some other processors from AMD and Intel are unlocked from the factory and labeled as an "enthusiast-grade" processors by end users and retailers because of this feature. For all processors, increasing

344-495: A processor running at 3200 MHz might be using a 400 MHz FSB. This means there is an internal clock multiplier setting (also called bus/core ratio) of 8. That is, the CPU is set to run at 8 times the frequency of the front-side bus: 400 MHz × 8 = 3200 MHz. Different CPU speeds are achieved by varying either the FSB frequency or the CPU multiplier, this is referred to as overclocking or underclocking . Setting an FSB speed

387-665: A shared FSB, though performance could not scale linearly due to bandwidth bottlenecks . The front-side bus was used in all Intel Atom , Celeron , Pentium , Core 2 , and Xeon processor models through about 2008 and was eliminated in 2009. Originally, this bus was a central connecting point for all system devices and the CPU. The potential of a faster CPU is wasted if it cannot fetch instructions and data as quickly as it can execute them. The CPU may spend significant time idle while waiting to read or write data in main memory, and high-performance processors therefore require high bandwidth and low latency access to memory. The front-side bus

430-413: A small amount of work on each element of a large data set , FSB speed becomes a major performance issue. A slow FSB will cause the CPU to spend significant amounts of time waiting for data to arrive from system memory . However, if the computations involving each element are more complex, the processor will spend longer performing these; therefore, the FSB will be able to keep pace because the rate at which

473-459: A traditional architecture, the front-side bus served as the immediate data link between the CPU and all other devices in the system, including main memory. In HyperTransport- and QPI-based systems, system memory is accessed independently by means of a memory controller integrated into the CPU, leaving the bandwidth on the HyperTransport or QPI link for other uses. This increases the complexity of

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516-446: A traditional northbridge to do so. Intel followed suit in 2008 with the release of its Core i series CPUs and the X58 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

559-1037: A variety of purposes, including acting as a timer, performing digital to analog conversion, performing amplification, or being used for logical operations. Current: Obsolete: A vacuum tube is based on current conduction through a vacuum (see Vacuum tube ). Optical detectors or emitters Obsolete: Sources of electrical power: Components incapable of controlling current by means of another electrical signal are called passive devices. Resistors, capacitors, inductors, and transformers are all considered passive devices. Pass current in proportion to voltage ( Ohm's law ) and oppose current. Capacitors store and release electrical charge. They are used for filtering power supply lines, tuning resonant circuits, and for blocking DC voltages while passing AC signals, among numerous other uses. Integrated passive devices are passive devices integrated within one distinct package. They take up less space than equivalent combinations of discrete components. Electrical components that use magnetism in

602-412: Is related directly to the speed grade of memory a system must use. The memory bus connects the northbridge and RAM, just as the front-side bus connects the CPU and northbridge. Often, these two buses must operate at the same frequency. Increasing the front-side bus to 450 MHz in most cases also means running the memory at 450 MHz. In newer systems, it is possible to see memory ratios of "4:5" and

645-544: The Intel 80286 CPU. In home computers , game consoles, and arcade hardware of the 1980s and 1990s, the term chipset was used for the custom audio and graphics chips. Examples include the Original Amiga chipset and Sega 's System 16 chipset. In x86 -based personal computers, the term chipset often refers to a specific pair of chips on the motherboard: the northbridge and the southbridge . The northbridge links

688-714: 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. 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

731-602: The 1990s, a major designer and manufacturer of chipsets was VLSI 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 of DDR SDRAM memory. The Apple Macintosh SE , Macintosh II and later the Quadras series used chipsets from VLSI Technology , even though they were ASICs designed by Apple. After

774-578: The AC circuit, an abstraction that ignores DC voltages and currents (and the power associated with them) present in the real-life circuit. This fiction, for instance, lets us view an oscillator as "producing energy" even though in reality the oscillator consumes even more energy from a DC power supply, which we have chosen to ignore. Under that restriction, we define the terms as used in circuit analysis as: Most passive components with more than two terminals can be described in terms of two-port parameters that satisfy

817-462: The CPU design but offers greater throughput as well as superior scaling in multiprocessor systems. The bandwidth or maximum theoretical throughput of the front-side bus is determined by the product of the width of its data path, its clock frequency (cycles per second) and the number of data transfers it performs per clock cycle. For example, a 64- bit (8- byte ) wide FSB operating at a frequency of 100 MHz that performs 4 transfers per cycle has

860-577: 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 the Skylake processors. 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. However, since the release of

903-505: The CPU to very high-speed devices, especially RAM and graphics controllers , and the southbridge connects to lower-speed peripheral buses (such as PCI or ISA ). In many modern chipsets, the southbridge contains some on-chip integrated peripherals , such as Ethernet , USB , and audio devices. Motherboards and their chipsets often come from different manufacturers. As of 2021, manufacturers of chipsets for x86 motherboards include AMD , Intel , VIA Technologies and Zhaoxin . In

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946-424: The FSB speed can be done to boost processing speed by reducing latency between CPU and the northbridge. This practice pushes components beyond their specifications and may cause erratic behavior, overheating or premature failure. Even if the computer appears to run normally, problems may appear under a heavy load. Most PCs purchased from retailers or manufacturers, such as Hewlett-Packard or Dell , do not allow

989-415: The FSB, only allowing Intel processors in the CPU socket. The first example was field-programmable gate array (FPGA) co-processors, a result of collaboration between Intel- Xilinx - Nallatech and Intel- Altera -XtremeData (which shipped in 2008). The frequency at which a processor (CPU) operates is determined by applying a clock multiplier to the front-side bus (FSB) speed in some cases. For example,

1032-499: 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. The UMI interface previously used by AMD for communicating with the FCH is replaced with a PCIe connection. Technically the processor can operate without

1075-544: The chipset in order for data to flow between the connected devices. These secondary system buses usually run at speeds derived from the front-side bus clock, but are not necessarily synchronized to it. In response to AMD 's Torrenza initiative, Intel opened its FSB CPU socket to third party devices. Prior to this announcement, made in Spring 2007 at Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, Intel had very closely guarded who had access to

1118-541: The chipset plays a crucial role in determining system performance . Sometimes the term "chipset" is used to describe a system on chip (SoC) used in a mobile phone. In computing , the term chipset commonly refers to a set of specialized chips on a computer 's motherboard or an expansion card . In personal computers , the first chipset for the IBM PC AT of 1984 was the NEAT chipset developed by Chips and Technologies for

1161-444: The discrete version of these components, treating such packages as components in their own right. Components can be classified as passive, active , or electromechanic . The strict physics definition treats passive components as ones that cannot supply energy themselves, whereas a battery would be seen as an active component since it truly acts as a source of energy. However, electronic engineers who perform circuit analysis use

1204-515: The front-side bus for timing. Overclocking is the practice of making computer components operate beyond their stock performance levels by manipulating the frequencies at which the component is set to run, and, when necessary, modifying the voltage sent to the component to allow it to operate at these higher frequencies with more stability. Many motherboards allow the user to manually set the clock multiplier and FSB settings by changing jumpers or BIOS settings. Almost all CPU manufacturers now "lock"

1247-588: The implementation, some computers may also have a back-side bus that connects the CPU to the cache . This bus and the cache connected to it are faster than accessing the system memory (or RAM) via the front-side bus. The speed of the front side bus is often used as an important measure of the performance of a computer. The original front-side bus architecture was replaced by HyperTransport , Intel QuickPath Interconnect , and Direct Media Interface , followed by Intel Ultra Path Interconnect and AMD's Infinity Fabric . The term came into use by Intel Corporation about

1290-450: The interface between a northbridge and southbridge was the PCI bus. Before 2003, any interaction between a CPU and main memory or an expansion device such as a graphics card(s) — whether AGP , 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

1333-435: The like. The memory will run 5/4 times as fast as the FSB in this situation, meaning a 400 MHz bus can run with the memory at 500 MHz. This is often referred to as an 'asynchronous' system. Due to differences in CPU and system architecture, overall system performance can vary in unexpected ways with different FSB-to-memory ratios. In image, audio, video, gaming, FPGA synthesis and scientific applications that perform

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1376-463: The memory is accessed is reduced. Similar to the memory bus, the PCI and AGP buses can also be run asynchronously from the front-side bus. In older systems, these buses are operated at a set fraction of the front-side bus frequency. This fraction was set by the BIOS . In newer systems, the PCI, AGP, and PCI Express peripheral buses often receive their own clock signals , which eliminates their dependence on

1419-449: The northbridge's memory performance and ability to shuttle this information back to the processor. In 2003, however, AMD's introduction of the Athlon 64 series of processors 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

1462-487: The principle of reciprocity —though there are rare exceptions. In contrast, active components (with more than two terminals) generally lack that property. Transistors were considered the invention of the twentieth century that changed electronic circuits forever. A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and electrical power. Conduct electricity easily in one direction, among more specific behaviors. Integrated Circuits can serve

1505-532: The processor. This connection between the processor and northbridge is commonly designated the front-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,

1548-444: 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 called Fusion Controller Hub (FCH). The PCH is still called a chipset. 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

1591-400: The storage and release of electrical charge through current: Electrical components that pass charge in proportion to magnetism or magnetic flux, and have the ability to retain a previous resistive state, hence the name of Memory plus Resistor. Components that use more than one type of passive component: Antennas transmit or receive radio waves Multiple electronic components assembled in

1634-506: The switch to PowerPC , Apple used various ASIC suppliers for their chipsets such as VLSI technology, Texas Instruments , LSI Logic or Lucent Technologies (later known as Agere 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,

1677-425: The symbols to identify the components. Front-side bus The front-side bus ( FSB ) is a computer communication interface ( bus ) that was often used in Intel -chip-based computers during the 1990s and 2000s. The EV6 bus served the same function for competing AMD CPUs. Both typically carry data between the central processing unit (CPU) and a memory controller hub, known as the northbridge . Depending on

1720-542: The time the Pentium Pro and Pentium II products were announced, in the 1990s. "Front side" refers to the external interface from the processor to the rest of the computer system, as opposed to the back side, where the back-side bus connects the cache (and potentially other CPUs). A front-side bus (FSB) is mostly used on PC-related motherboards (including personal computers and servers). They are seldom used in embedded systems or similar small computers. The FSB design

1763-463: The user to change the multiplier or FSB settings due to the probability of erratic behavior or failure. Motherboards purchased separately to build a custom machine are more likely to allow the user to edit the multiplier and FSB settings in the PC's BIOS. The front-side bus had the advantage of high flexibility and low cost when it was first designed. Simple symmetric multiprocessors place a number of CPUs on

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1806-524: Was a performance improvement over the single system bus designs of the previous decades, but these front-side buses are sometimes referred to as the "system bus". Front-side buses usually connect the CPU and the rest of the hardware via a chipset , which Intel implemented as a northbridge and a southbridge . Other buses like the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP), and memory buses all connect to

1849-526: Was criticized by AMD as being an old and slow technology that limits system performance. More modern designs use point-to-point and serial connections like AMD's HyperTransport and Intel's DMI 2.0 or QuickPath Interconnect (QPI). These implementations remove the traditional northbridge in favor of a direct link from the CPU to the system memory, high-speed peripherals, and the Platform Controller Hub , southbridge or I/O controller. In

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