chipset

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 the first chipset for the IBM PC AT was the NEAT chipset by Chips and Technologies for the Intel 80286CPU. Chipsets are the main controllers on the motherboard - they allow the CPU to interface with the various components and expansion cards installed.”

Based on Intel Pentium-class microprocessors, the term chipset 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 PCIor ISA). In many modern chipsets, the southbridge actually contains some on-chipintegrated peripherals, such as Ethernet, USB, and audio devices.

A chipset is usually designed to work with a specific family of microprocessors. Because it controls communications between the processor and external devices, the chipset plays a crucial role in determining system performance.

The manufacturer of a chipset often is independent from the manufacturer of the motherboard. Current manufacturers of chipsets for PC-compatible motherboards includeNVIDIA, AMD, VIA Technologies, SiS, Intel and Broadcom. Apple computers and Unixworkstations from Sun, NeXT, SGI, and others have traditionally used custom-designed chipsets; now that Sun and Apple both have x86 processors in at least some of their lines of products, they have begun to use standard PC chipsets in some of their computers. Some server manufacturers also develop custom chipsets for their products.