Chipset (Chipsets) by IC chip architecture made ​​of one or more groups, it is the hub for all data transfer, and hold the contact between the CPU, Memory, and peripherals, that is all computer central processing and output intoThe unit must communicate with each other through the chipset coordination. Highly integrated chipset, but only in recent years happened, covered a wide range of single-function chip responsible for different functions in the previous motherboard, often increased the motherboard area space, complex design so that the high cost high.Later, due to the technological advances of the IC chip design process more stars of single-function chip architecture at the number of stars concentrated chip, highly integrated Chipsets will be born before the world, the original motherboard features have been gradually replaced. Current IC R & D center of gravity of single-chip systems SoC (System on a Chip), than Chipsets power saving many have focused more due to SoC, consistent and complete power-down control mechanisms to transfer data in an entire chip than the chip between passing more power saving. In short, if the CPU is the brain of the computer, Chipsets can be regarded as the heart of the computer. Western Ontario is concerned, Chipsets can be divided into the control system and its functionality chipset, and the chipset designed for the application requirements of these two categories. The chipset (a) control system, also known as the system chipset, usually soldered on the motherboard, composed by two chipset chipset called Northbridge chip (North Bridge) near the microprocessor (MPU), controlMemory function operation; situated PCI, near the AGP slot bus (Bus) chipset called the southbridge (South Bridge) input and output signals, control of the motherboard. This two chipsets each responsible for a different job, and take advantage of the medium of circulation of the Bus as a signal on the motherboard. (B) such chipset with application functionality is all-encompassing, modem, sound card, display card, network card can contain. Type of chipset even contain the power management functionality of the IDE controller chip keyboard controller chip (KBC, Keyboard Controller), clock chip (RTC, Real Time Clock) and so on. Chipset sound card, for example, that is used to control the output of the audio signal into, so that the user was able to hear the sound of the music CD; network card on Boot PROM (Boot Programmable Read-Only Memory), is also a Loading from the network to the PC operating system chipset. If the deck will "Northbridge chipset on the system, it contains the following sections: (1) CPU Interface: Chipset CPU signal into its Bus signals, if the CPU Access Memory Data chipset must be the CPU signals convert signals Memory access; (2) memory controller: the chipset is also responsible for to control Memory complicated control circuit, and translates messages for Memory read; (3) PCI and AGP Interface: Chipset control access to the PCI and AGP Bus message; (4) L2 Cache Interface: control the message read L2 Cache, and to maintain data consistency and L1 Cache. "Orders" Southbridge contains ISA interface (PCI signals into signals of the ISA), X Bus interface (control access to the BIOS, the RTC the message), IDE interface (control access to HD and CD-ROM)USB controllers and more. Chipsets development of 10 from 1994 to 1997 will be reduced to four companies, common systems on the market the Intel chipset, VIA (VIA), SIS (SiS), ALI (ALi). Intel's mainstream products 440BX i820, i815/815E; VIA VIA, Apoll-Pro133/133A, KT-133; SIS is SIS; ALI ALI total, Aladdin-TNT2.Which In addition to Inteli820, i815/815E, All Chipsets by Northbridge Southbridge constitute, Intel by three chip: the MCH (memory-controller hub, function similar Northbridge), ICH (I / O-controller hubfunction similar southbridge), FWH (Fireware-hub, function similar to the BIOS). This chipset using specialized bus (commonly known as AHA; accelerated hub structure; Acclerated-hub Architecture) connected to the motherboard, and not, as the original PCI bus transfer information, and therefore higher contact a variety of peripheral devices required to meet performance . In addition, the application platform level, Chipsets more Intel and AMD (Advanced Micro Devices)-based, although the latter K7 MPU infrastructure out Chipsets, Intel PC MPU market almost monopoly, the market share of the high, so the application platformChipsets market mainly Intel exclusive; Furthermore Engineering samples patent also rests in Intel hands, so in addition to the VIA brief their hard work, SIS and ALI almost fully contain by Intel. Example, the previous the Intel Chipsets products with DDR Memory 845D, integrated 845G Series with Rambus 850E, and cheap Chipsets 845GL.Centrino, Intel introduced in March 2003 for the design of the application platform so that other industry vendors had a hard time in the new generation NB PC Chipsets. Before Intel has again launched a new 875P series motherboard Chipsets, supports new generation FSB800MHz Pentium 4, and with dual-channel DDR 400 Memory, 8 USB2.0 ports, AGP 8X, strengthen MCH execution efficiency and Hyper-Threading technology (Hyper Threading Technology) and other functions, to accelerate its Chipsets dominate. Phone RF, graphics, and digital home integration ADSL unlimited LAN (WLAN) chipset development in diverse applications, mainly based. The 1999 WLAN market neglected, the upstream chip market by Lucent and Intersil two oligopoly, up to 50% of gross profit. Later, the situation changed radically, such as the Radiata, Atheros, etc. wafer manufacturers launched, creating the WLAN chipset market to flourish. Among them, Agere subsidiary is spun off from Lucent, with a market share second only Intersil is the world's second. The Agere chip RF Chips purchased from Philips, the rest of Baseband, MAC chip is homemade, the main products for IEEE 802.11b Chipsets multivendor Toshiba, Compaq, Apple, Dell, NEC, IBM and other system manufacturers, Taiwan USI Electric is its main foundry.Intersil is the highest market share Chipsets manufacturer, in 2000 the market universal chip Intersil Prism II. Ⅴ May 2001 Intersil announced a new generation of Prism III. In addition, Atheros was founded in May 1998 by Stanford and 3Com RF and signal processing experts, a target on GHz WLAN Chipsets market, the first to mass production and dominate the world's first IEEE 802.11a Chipsets. Atheros has introduced four kinds Chipsets Combo 802.11a/b/g AR5001X, and IEEE 802.11a AR5000 AR5001A, there are designed to bridge AR5001AP launch mass production in the second half of 2002.In addition the Israeli Envara chip design company at the end of July 2001, Japan launched a group called WiND, 5GHz Chipsets mass production in 4Q 2002, is characterized by the use of a dual-band RF 802.11b and 802.11athe two CMOS chip, which is a MAC and the baseband and another one to do the dual-band RF same architecture in a chipset become a Dual-Mode chipset, saving 15% -20% of the electricity. Above the Atheros and Envara two WLAN chip makers, also recently launched a full CMOS process multimode WLAN (.11b/g/a) Mobile RF Chipsets.Another by Broadcom in the areas of LAN and broadband IC business success, and in January 2002 launched the first IEEE 802.11b Chipsets; made ​​only three CMOS process launched in mid-July 2004 802.11a / b Dual-Band solutionsChipsets. The need for more and more entertainment features and integration, including the strengthening of the digital image processing, online games and digital home appliances and so makes graphics chipset developed in full swing. 1999 integrated graphics chipset (Integrated Graphic Chipsets; IGC) has become one of the hot focus of the application chipset, it is different from the general graphics chips are on the graphics card Memory as the mode of operation of the store operation information, IGC shared memory architecture (Share Memory Architecture; SMA), to operate through main memory space shared with the entire PC system, nVIDIA nForce series vanguard.Also critical to the integration of digital home quality ADSL, its direction toward the single-chip development with a variety of compatible standard The Orckit Fujitsu launch KeyWave, analog and digital system integrated into a single chip; programs in a variety of compatible standardLucent in 200 years WildWire, the use of a single chip can simultaneously support V.90, DSL Lite and Full Rate three standard. Intel Pentium 4 has been able to meet the hardware performance needs of the operating system and application software to work when the clock is no longer is the only indicator of evaluating CPU performance, the FSB (CPU external frequency, that is the microprocessor to the northbridgethe will slow update speed of the transmission speed); Moreover Memory Specification has been upgraded to Dual DDR 400, North Bridge chip in response to transmission performance balance, product upgrades necessity will be significantly reduced. On the other hand, with PCI Express will soon successfully replaced the AGP Bus as well as North and South Bridges, the latter between Interface Specification changes also significantly reduced.The long-term point of view of the above factors, the conditions all the more mature the integration between the CPU, north and south bridge and graphics chips, the distance from Chipsets to SoC will also shorten more.