North Bridge Chip (North Bridge) is the most important part of the dominant role in the motherboard chipset, also known as the main bridge. In general, the name of the chipset is named after the name of the North Bridge chip. For example, the North Bridge chip of the Intel 845E chipset is 82845E, the North Bridge chip of the 875P chipset is 82875P, etc. The North Bridge chip is responsible for the connection with the CPU and controls memory, AGP, PCI data in the North Bridge internal transmission, providing the type and frequency of the CPU, the frequency, the front-end bus frequency, the type of memory (SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, and RDRAM, etc.) and the largest Support for capacity, ISA / PCI / AGP slot, ECC error correction, etc. The North Bridge chip of the integrated chipset also integrates the display core. The North Bridge chip is the nearest chip on the motherboard, which is mainly to consider the communication between the North Bridge chip and the processor, and shorten the transmission distance in order to improve communication performance. Because the data processing volume of the North Bridge chip is very large, the heat is getting bigger and bigger, so the current North Bridge chip covers the heat dissipation of the finish of the North Bridge chip, and some main boards of the North Bridge chip also cooperate with the fan for heat dissipation. Because the main function of the North Bridge chip is to control the memory, the memory standard is more frequent as the processor, so the North Bridge chip in different chipses is certain. Of course, this is not the same, but the memory technology used is completely different, but Different chipbank North Bridge chips must have different parts in some places. Since the CPU that has been released AMD K8 cores integrates the memory controller inside the CPU, the North Bridge chip that supports the K8 chipset becomes more simplified, and even single-chip chip structures can be used. This may be a big trend, the function of the North Bridge chip will gradually monogram, in order to simplify the main board structure, improve the main board integration, maybe the mainstream chip group is likely to become a single-chip form in North and South Bridge (fact The SIS has released a lot of single chip chip groups early. South Bridge is an important part of the motherboard chipset. It is generally located below the motherboard, and the PCI slot is close to the PCI slot. This layout is considered to be connected to the I / O bus. More, far from the processor is far a little more conducive to the wiring. Compared to the North Bridge chip, its data processing is not large, so the South Bridge chip generally does not cover the heat sink. The South Bridge chip is not directly connected to the processor, but through a certain way (different manufacturers have different chipsets, such as Intel Hub Architecture and SIS's Multi-Threaded "Miao") are connected to the North Bridge chip. Nanqiao chip is responsible for communication between I / O bus, such as PCI bus, USB, LAN, ATA, SATA, audio controller, keyboard controller, real-time clock controller, advanced power management, etc., these technologies are generally relatively compared. Stable, so there may be the same South Bridge chip in different chipsets, and different is the North Bridge chip. So now the number of North Bridge chips in the motherboard chipset is far more than South Bridge chips. For example, the 430TX and SLOT 1 of the Early Intel Different Architecture Socket 7 440LX Hiqiao chip uses 82317Ab, and the chipset 845E / 845G / 845GE / 845PE in the past two years uses ICH4 South Bridge chip, but also Can with ICH2 South Bridge chip. What's more, there are some primary products produced by the main board manufacturers, the Northern Bridge used by the South and South Bridges in different chipgers, such as the KG7-RAID motherboard used before, the North Bridge adopted AMD 760, and the South Bridge is VIA 686B. The development direction of the South Bridge chip is mainly integrated with more features, such as NIC, RAID, IEEE 1394, and even Wi-Fi wireless networks, etc.
