Nanqiao

South Bridge is a magnificent corridor bridge between South Street and Fuxing street.

In terms of popularity, Nanqiao should be no less than any other place in Dujiangyan water conservancy project. South Bridge not only has exquisite gatehouse, but also has magnificent construction and exquisite structure. On the bridge, there are all kinds of colorful paintings, carved beams and painted buildings. Besides, the snacks on the south bridge may be its charm. Beside the bridge, there is a busy food street with various stalls, restaurants and performances by artists dressed up as cartoon characters.

After dusk, the lighting of Nanqiao is beautiful, which is a good place to shoot night scenery. After touring Dujiangyan in the daytime, it's very pleasant to sit here in the evening with the river breeze blowing.

Nanqiao chip

synonym

Nanqiao (computer motherboard Nanqiao chip) general guide bridge chip

Southbridge is one of the chips in the chipset architecture based on PC motherboard. The South Bridge is designed to process low-speed signals and communicate with the CPU through the north bridge. The name of Nanqiao varies from chipset manufacturer to chipset manufacturer. For example, Intel calls it input / output controller hub (ICH), NVIDIA MCP, ATI IXP / sb, and AMD begins to include fusion APU, and gives FCH, or fusion controller center, to represent its Nanqiao chip. However, in some chipset architectures, the functions of South Bridge will be integrated with North Bridge; or some functions will be moved to North Bridge, while some functions of South Bridge will be deleted, and the deleted interface functions will be provided with additional independent chipsets. In this way, there will only be a single chip in the whole chipset architecture, and there will not be another Nanqiao chip.

type

Intel

Since the beginning of ich2, Intel South Bridge chips have shown amazing strength, and then every generation of North Bridge chips are matched with new South Bridge chips. Ich4 supports USB 2.0 for the first time, and ICH5 introduces SATA function. However, what is really worth remembering is ich6, which is also the rudiment of the current Intel south bridge chip.

Intel ICH6

Like ICH5, ich6 is divided into two models: ich6r and ich6. The main difference between them is that they support the disk array function. In addition to supporting common RAID 0 and RAID 1 disk array functions like ich5r, ich6r also adds a disk array mode called "matrix raid". The so-called matrix raid is more like a raid 1.5 mode, that is, to achieve the stability and data security of RAID 0 + 1 at the expense of 25% of the capacity. In terms of integration, ich6 is also unprecedented. Four serial ATA channels, one parallel ATA interface, four PCI Express X1 expansion devices, integration of gigabit network and eight USB 2.0 interfaces, etc. In order to enhance the serial ATA function, Intel boldly gives up a parallel ATA interface, that is to say, users can only install one IDE hard disk and one ide optical drive at most, unless they use an additional ide control card.

The audio function is a highlight of ich6. The Azalia controller integrated in the south bridge chip of ich6 adopts the new Azalia controller Link (AC link used to be used in AC'97) is connected with many external codecs (data signal conversion decoders). The connection bandwidth is upgraded to a very high level. The single channel input bandwidth alone reaches 24MB / s, while the total bandwidth of AC link is only 11.5mb/s. In addition, Azalia link supports multi-channel input and output, and the manufacturer can use the corresponding mode according to the demand, up to 7.1 channels.

Intel ich7 and ich8

There are five versions of ich7 Nanqiao chip, which are ich7, ich7dh, ich7do, ich7de and ich7r. Among them, ich7 is standard, ich7dh is for digital home entertainment computer, ich7do is for commercial use, ich7de is for computer game players, and ich7r is the version supporting RAID 0 / 1 / 5 / 1 + 0 disk array function.

In terms of integration, ich7 is unprecedented. All ich7 South bridges support four serial ATA channels, which means that users will be more free to use serial ATA serial hard disk, laying the foundation for the formation of RAID disk array. More importantly, optical storage devices may also switch to serial ATA interface in the future, so it is necessary to improve the design. Ich7's attitude towards parallel ATA interface is also gratifying. Instead of abandoning parallel ATA completely, it retains a parallel ATA interface and allows users to connect two parallel ATA devices.

In the new era, the chipset will focus on PCI Express. PCI Express is not the patent of high-performance graphics card, it can even replace the existing PCI interface. The standard version of ich7 has four PCI express lanes, that is to say, it can provide up to four PCI Express X1 interfaces, while the other four enhanced versions all provide six PCI express lanes, and even the PCI Express X4 interface with higher bandwidth is expected. At this time, it will play a certain advantage when equipped with Gigabit network card, ultra320 SCSI control card and other devices. Ich8 is an improved version of ich7. In addition to the USB interface from 8 to 10, sata-ii interface from 4 to 6, the first built-in Gigabit Ethernet controller, supporting 6 pci-e X1. In addition to supporting active management technology (iAMT) and mute system technology, the biggest change is to completely cancel the support for AC97 audio technology, and only keep high-definition audio (HDA) output. At the same time, it no longer provides IDE interface for PATA, forcing it into the era of SATA. Ich8 is divided into four different versions, which are low-end version, mainstream version, digital enterprise version and digital home version. The main difference between the two versions is that the former supports the new version of Intel Matrix Storage Technology (MST). MST technology can provide two external 3gbps eSATA interfaces, thus increasing the number of SATA interfaces to six, supporting AHCI and RAID 0 / 1 / 5 / 10 modes.

Unique raid mode

Matrix RAID disk array mode is a new raid mode introduced by Intel. In the past, the general ataraid control chip can only provide RAID 0, RAID 1 or RAID 0 + 1. RAID 0 provides performance, while RAID 1 provides data security. To take into account both efficiency and security, we need to use RAID 0 + 1, but this requires four hard disks, and it will waste half of the hard disk space. In matrix raid mode, only two hard disks can be used to create a RAID 0 + 1 environment. Suppose there are two 80GB hard disks, we can make the first 40Gb of the two hard disks into 80GB logical partition, and then the remaining two 40Gb blocks into a 40Gb data backup partition. For applications requiring high performance without security, they can be installed in the RAID 0 partition, while data requiring security backup can be installed in the RAID 1 partition. In other words, the total hard disk space users get is 120GB. Compared with the traditional RAID 0 + 1, the efficiency of capacity utilization is still very high, and the capacity configuration has higher flexibility.

IAMT technology is controversial

IAMT (Intel Active Management Technology) remote management technology was exposed as early as last year's IDF autumn forum, but it was thought that it would be first integrated into Intel's dual core processor. However, Intel obviously changed its plan to transfer this technology to ich7 south bridge chip, but only ich7 do and de versions support it. Standard Version ich7, ich7r and ich7de do not support iAMT technology for the time being.

In fact, iAMT technology was originally only used in the server field. It allows users to use new management functions to maintain their networked computers, even if the computer is not logged in or turned off. This technology can prevent users from deleting key data, and provide remote control and anti-virus functions to provide a perfect asset protection mechanism. It can be switched on or off

Chinese PinYin : Nan Qiao