The KT600 Chipset Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The KT600 Chipset - Essay Example In this article, the KT600 chipset from Via Technologies will be investigated with its operations, configurations and the layout demonstrated to understand the operations and configuration of the chipset (Via Technologies, 2012). The general arrangement of the KT600 chipset in relation to other PC components (Source: DragonByte technologies, 2012) The above chipset consist of the north and south bridge as shown in the diagram above. In the KT600 chipset, the Northern bridge handles all data from graphic ports, the AGP, or PCI express, and then from memory consisting of Front Side Bus, FSB (Via Technologies, 2012). Although the two chips are essential from the chipset, mostly, the Northern chipset handles most of the essential tasks, which include connection between the main memory bank and he CPU. On the other hand, the Southern bridge is responsible for data from PCIx1 slots and may even have some integrated components such as audio or onboard graphics. As shown on the figure above, the North and South bridges have different chips names though they are often paired with the same opposite bridges, to be referred to with the collective name of a chipset. The diagram shows all the components of a PC, and how these are connected to either the north or south bridges of the KT600 chipset. The main functions of the above chipset are to manage data throughout the PC. Data is transported throughout the PC through a bus. The bus is responsible for carrying data to its right location via the chipset. However, the Backside Bus (BSB); the bus between the cache memory and the CPU does not follow this rule. Some PCs today may have the cache memory, which makes it not necessary to go through the chipset when carrying this information in the PC. The BSB is however different from the main memory bus in that it only dictates the speed between the cache memory and the CPU. The memory bus speed is usually a different bus, with the ability to change the speed independently. Apart f rom the BSB the other buses go through the chipset to get required direction where to take the data. This implies the huge amount of data that goes through the chipset requires it to be up to speed. Speed is one of the important aspects that have to be considered when considering the above chipset, as poor choice of speed may severely hamper the performance of a computer. For example, with the advanced Fast stream 64 DDR400 Memory Controller on the VIA Apollo KT600 interweaves used together with the 400MHZ FSB, this results to a perfectly balanced subsystem that greatly reduces data latency and enhances searing performance from the latest processors, such as the AMD Athlon XP Processor. Moreover, the KT600 supports the AGP8X, which offers the chipset maximum performance from one of the most powerful graphic controllers (Via Technologies, 2012). A Figure of Gates diagram for KT600 Chipset The chipset operates according to the logic diagram portrayed above. The High Voltage Gate Drive rs are strategically designed and arranged to drive both high and the low side N channel MOSFETs in a half bridge synchronized configuration (Texas Instruments, 12). The floating high speed driver can operate with a supply voltage of up to 100V. Moreover, the A version provides a full 3A of gate drive, while the B and C provide the 2A and 1A versions respectively (Texas Instrument