What’s the role of south bridge chip on Industrial Grade Single Board Computer?

In Industrial Grade Single Board Computer, in addition to the north bridge chip and the south bridge chip, they are also an important part of the industrial motherboard. The South Bridge chip is generally located near the PCI slot on the industrial motherboard, so what role does the South Bridge chip play in the industrial motherboard? Below, Shenzhen Zechuangweiye will introduce the role of the South Bridge chip of the industrial motherboard in detail.

The South Bridge chip is responsible for the communication between I/O buses, such as PCI bus, USB, LAN, ATA, SATA, audio controller, keyboard controller, real-time clock controller, advanced power management, etc. These technologies are relatively stable , So the South Bridge chip may be the same in different chipsets, but the North Bridge chip is different. Therefore, the number of north bridge chips in the motherboard chipset is far more than that of south bridge chips.

The development direction of the South Bridge chip is mainly to integrate more functions, such as network cards, RAID, IEEE1394, and even Wi-Fi wireless networks. The south bridge chip is the most important part of the Industrial Grade Single Board Computer chipset except for the north bridge chip. It is generally located on the motherboard far below the CPU slot and near the PCI slot. This layout takes into account the I/ There are more O buses, and a little bit farther away from the processor is conducive to wiring, and it is easier to realize the wiring principle of equal length of signal lines. Compared with the north bridge chip, the data processing volume of the south bridge chip is not large, so the south bridge chip generally does not need to take active heat dissipation, sometimes even the heat sink is not required.

Different south bridge chips can be matched with different north bridge chips. Although there is a certain corresponding relationship, the Industrial Grade Single Board Computer manufacturer can choose at will as long as the connection bus matches and the pins are compatible. The most obvious example is the AMD-ATI chipset. Its north bridge chip can be used with its own south bridge chip or ULI or VIA south bridge chip. In addition, many typical chipsets can also use different south bridges. For example, back then, Intel 845E could be matched with ICH2 or ICH4. Even the ICH8 South Bridge, which is widely used in P965 motherboards, has different versions, which show obvious functional differences.

In summary, we know that the chipset is the soul of Industrial Grade Single Board Computer, and the South Bridge chip is an indispensable component as the auxiliary chip of the North Bridge chip.

Well,now do you know What’s the role of south bridge chip on Industrial Grade Single Board Computer?

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