Specifications

Computer Architecture and Maintenance (G-Scheme-2014)

Q.State Function of North and South Bridge

Ans. South Bridge

The southbridge is one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a personal

computer (PC) motherboard, the other being the northbridge. The southbridge

typically implements the slower capabilities of the motherboard in a

northbridge/southbridge chipset computer architecture. In Intel chipset systems, the

southbridge is named Input/Output Controller Hub (ICH). AMD, beginning with

its Fusion APUs, has given the label FCH, or Fusion Controller Hub, to its southbridge.

The southbridge can usually be distinguished from the northbridge by not being

directly connected to the CPU. Rather, the northbridge ties the southbridge to the CPU.

Through the use of controller integrated channel circuitry, the northbridge can directly

link signals from the I/O units to the CPU for data control and access.

Function of South Bridge

The south bridge is a chip on the motherboard. If we want to look at one of the

latest models, we could take the south bridge, which is designed for motherboards

with Pentium 4 processors. The south bridge incorporates a number of different

controller functions, it looks after the transfer of data to and from the hard disk and all

the other I/0 devices, and passes this data into the link channel which connects to the

north bridge. It contains the following components and functions as shown in Table.

Component Description

DMI The south bridge is a chip on the motherboard. If we want to

look at one of the latest models, we could take the south

bridge, which is designed for motherboards with Pentium 4

processors. The south bridge incorporates a number of

different controller functions, it looks after the transfer of data

to and from the hard disk and all the other 1/0 devices, and

passes this data into the link channel which connects to the

north bridge. It contains the following components and

functions as shown in Table.

PCi-Express Hi-speed bus for I/O adapters.

PCi port Standard I/O bus.

Serial Sata Controller for up to four SATA hard disks.

Matrix Storage Advanced Host Controller Interface for RAID0 and 1 on the

same drives. Including support for Native Command Queuing

and hot plug drive swaps.

Ultra Ata/100 Controller for PATA devices like hard disks, DVI and CD-

Prepared By – Prof. Manoj.kavedia (9860174297 – 9324258878 ) (www.kavediasir.yolasite.com)