die in Southbridge - Reading Comprehension

[shaharhada]

What is die?
In some instances, the northbridge and southbridge functions have been combined into one die when design complexity and fabrication processes permitted it; for example, the Nvidia GeForce 320M in the 2010 MacBook Air is a northbridge/soutbridge/GPU combo chip.
In the source:

Northbridge (computing) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[4745454b]

In this case die = chip. In the old days there were three chips that mattered, the cpu, nb, and sb. The nb handled memory access, agp access, and routed sb info to the cpu. With pcie, the nb got put on the cpu so the cpu has direct access to ram and gpu. The sb got renamed to a number of things, it varies by cpu maker

What makes you ask?

 

[shaharhada]

In this case die = chip. In the old days there were three chips that mattered, the cpu, nb, and sb. The nb handled memory access, agp access, and routed sb info to the cpu. With pcie, the nb got put on the cpu so the cpu has direct access to ram and gpu. The sb got renamed to a number of things, it varies by cpu maker

What makes you ask?

Thanks. I see a lecture and the term Sourhbridge and Northbridge pop up in the lecture.

 

[kanewolf]

Thanks. I see a lecture and the term Sourhbridge and Northbridge pop up in the lecture.

In earlier generations of CPUs, there were two support chips required. The terms "Northbridge" and "Southbridge" were standardized. In newer CPUs the functions of the Northbridge have been moved onto the CPU.

 

[4745454b]

Nb wss the chip that handled ram and video card access. While the sb handled ide/sata, sound, lan, etc.

Edit: the sb doesn't generate the sound or drive data. It routes the info from the device to the cpu. In the case of ide/sata, the drive finds the info and then sends it to the sb. The sb then sends it to the nb, which then sends it to the ram. The cpu accesses it from there.