Introduction to Motherboard
The motherboard is the main printed circuit board in a computer. It contains the CPU, device controllers, appropriate support chips, memory and also explain slots to give access to the computer’s internal bus which are most important to us.
The motherboard is the heart of the whole system in a computer. It is called motherboard because all other features and peripherals plug into it to operate . Some of the major component of motherboard are described below:
Microprocessor and Upgrade Socket: Most system do not solder the microprocessor permanently to the motherboard (
if you do not know about microprocessor Then i would recommend you to read this article before Introduction to Microprocessor). The processor is in a socket that permits the processor easy removal from the motherboard .The socket is generally designed to support several types of microprocessor.
Cache memory and DRAM controller: The main memory DRAM which means dynamic ram ( If you don't know about ram then read this article What is RAM…? What does it do..? ) is physically packaged on small circuit boards called SIMM or DIMM. SIMM means Single Inline Memory Module and DIMM means Dual Inline Memory module.
The main system memory can not keep up with the performance of the processor and becomes a performance bottleneck . TO overcome this limitation , a second smaller memory , called cache memory is placed between the microprocessor and the system memory.
PCI Bus Bridge Chip: This chip coverts the microprocessor’s local bus to the PCI bus. This chip is different for different microprocessors. IN modern microprocessor the “Core Logic” chip set includes the microprocessor local bus to PCI bridge chip. The system memory controller and cache controller chip and the PCI to ISA bridge chip.
Keyboard/Mouse Controller and ports: A motherboard usually contains a keyboard and a mouse controller device and connector ports. The keyboard is attached to the motherboard through a serial interface cable.The keyboard clock and data interface signals attach to a micro-controller chip on the motherboard.
ROM BIOS: BIOS stands for Basic input and output system. Simply the ROM BIOS is a read only memory that contains many software.
Real time clock and Calender: Every motherboard contains a chip called a real time clock/calender . This device also contains a small memory which is nonvolatile . This device always run even when the system has no power.The power is supplied by a small battery installed on the motherboard. This device supplies date and time to the operating system and stores basic system configuration data in the memory.
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