Silicon Integrated Systems

Silicon Integrated Systems
矽統科技
Public
Traded as (TWSE: 2363)
Founded 1987
Headquarters Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan
Website www.sis.com

Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS; Chinese: 矽統科技; pinyin: Xìtǒng Kējì) is a company that manufactures, among other things, motherboard chipsets. The company was founded in 1987 in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan.

Business

In the late 1990s, SiS made the decision to invest in their own chip fabrication facilities. At the end of 1999, SiS acquired Rise Technology and that company's mP6 x86 core technology.[1]

Mainboard chipsets

One of the most famous chipsets produced by SiS was the late 486-age chipset 496/497 which supported PCI bus among older ISA- and VLB-buses. Mainboards using this chipset and equipped with CPUs such as the Intel 80486DX4, AMD 5x86 or Cyrix Cx5x86 processors had performance and compatibility comparable with early Intel Pentium systems in addition to a lower price.

After this late success, SiS continued positioning itself as a budget chipset producer. The company emphasized high integration to minimize the cost to implement their solutions. As such, SiS one-chip mainboard chipsets that included integrated video, such as the Socket 7-based SiS 5596, SiS 5598, and SiS 530 along with the Slot 1-based SiS 620. These were some of the first PC chipsets with such high integration. They allowed entire system solutions to be built with just a mainboard, system RAM, and a CPU.

386 & 486 (Socket 1, 2, 3)

Pentium (Socket 4,5,7)

SiS LAN Chip SiS900

The SiS 530 (Sindbad) with SiS 5595 southbridge supported Socket 7, SDRAM 1.5GB max., a bus frequency from 66 MHz to 124 MHz, and can have from 2 to 8 MiB shared memory for an integrated AGP SiS 6306 2D/3D graphics controller. Includes integrated UDMA66 IDE controller. mainboards using the SiS 530 were positioned as cheap office platforms and paired often with low-cost chips from Intel competitors, such as the AMD K6 series or Cyrix 6x86. The graphics controller had Direct3D 6.0 and OpenGL support, although it was a very low-performance product for 3D acceleration.[2]

SiS 540 (Spartan) integrates SiS 300 graphics controller.

Socket 370, Slot 1

Socket 478

SiS and ALi were the only two companies initially awarded licenses to produce third party chipsets for the Pentium 4. SiS developed the 648 chipset with this license (SiS 648 B Stepping supports Intel Hyper-Threading CPU on some motherboards like MSI 648 Max).[3]

Chipset Release Date South Bridge Processors FSB Memory types Memory bus Max. memory AGP IGP
SiS 645[4] 2001 SiS961, SiS961B Socket 423, Socket 478 400 MHz SDR SDRAM, DDR SDRAM 100/133 MHz SDR, 200/266/333 MHz DDR 3 GB 2×/4× No
SiS 645DX[5] 2002 SiS961, SiS962, SiS962L Socket 478 400/533 MHz SDR SDRAM, DDR SDRAM 100/133 MHz SDR, 200/266/333 MHz DDR 3 GB 2×/4× No
SiS 648 SiS963, SiS963L Socket 478 400/533 MHz DDR SDRAM 200/266/333 MHz DDR 3 GB 4×/8× No
SiS 648FX[6] 2003 SiS963, SiS963L Socket 478 400/533/800 MHz DDR SDRAM 200/266/333/400 MHz DDR 3 GB 4×/8× No
SiS 650[7] 2001 SiS961, SiS961B Socket 423, Socket 478 400 MHz SDR SDRAM, DDR SDRAM 100/133 MHz SDR, 200/266 MHz DDR 3 GB 2×/4× SiS315
SiS 650GX SiS961, SiS961B Socket 423, Socket 478 400 MHz SDR SDRAM, DDR SDRAM 100/133 MHz SDR, 200/266/333 MHz DDR 3 GB 2×/4× SiS315
SiS 651 SiS962, SiS962L Socket 478 400/533 MHz SDR SDRAM, DDR SDRAM 100/133 MHz SDR, 200/266/333 MHz DDR 3 GB 2×/4× SiS315
SiS 655[8] 2003 SiS963, SiS963L Socket 478 400/533 MHz Dual Channel DDR SDRAM 266/333 MHz DDR 4 GB 4×/8× No
SiS 655FX SiS964, SiS964L Socket 478 400/533/800 MHz Dual Channel DDR SDRAM 266/333/400 MHz DDR 4 GB 4×/8× No
SiS 661FX[9] 2003 SiS964, SiS964L Socket 478 400/533/800 MHz DDR SDRAM 266/333/400 MHz DDR 3 GB 4×/8× SiS315
SiS 661GX SiS964, SiS964L Socket 478 400/533/800 MHz DDR SDRAM 266/333/400 MHz DDR 3 GB 4×/8× SiS315

Other SiS socket 478 chipsets:

Socket A (Socket 462), Slot A

Chipset Release Date Southbridge Processors FSB Memory types Memory bus Max. memory AGP IGP
SiS 730 1999 Northbridge integrated Slot A, Socket A 100/133 MHz SDR SDRAM 100/133 MHz SDR 1.5 GB 2×/4× SiS305
SiS 733 Northbridge integrated Slot A, Socket A 200/266 MHz SDR SDRAM 100/133 MHz SDR 1.5 GB 2×/4× No
SiS 735[10] Northbridge integrated Slot A, Socket A 200/266 MHz SDR SDRAM, DDR SDRAM 100/133 MHz SDR, 200/266 MHz DDR 1.5 GB 2×/4× No
SiS 740[11] SiS961, SiS962L Socket A 200/266 MHz SDR SDRAM, DDR SDRAM 100/133 MHz SDR, 200/266 MHz DDR 1.5 GB 2×/4× SiS315
SiS 741[12] 2003 SiS964, SiS964L Socket A 266/333/400 MHz DDR SDRAM 266/333/400 MHz DDR 3 GB 4×/8× SiS315
SiS 741GX[12] 2003 SiS964, SiS964L Socket A 266/333 MHz DDR SDRAM 266/333 MHz DDR 3 GB 4×/8× SiS315
SiS 745[11] 2001 Northbridge integrated Socket A 200/266 MHz SDR SDRAM, DDR SDRAM 100/133 MHz SDR, 200/266/333 MHz DDR 3 GB 4×/8× No
SiS 746 [13] SiS963, SiS963L Socket A 200/266 MHz DDR SDRAM 200/266/333 MHz DDR 3 GB 4×/8× No
SiS 746FX [13] SiS963, SiS963L Socket A 200/266/333 MHz DDR SDRAM 200/266/333/400 MHz DDR 3 GB 4×/8× No
SiS 748 [14] 2003 SiS963, SiS963L Socket A 200/266/333/400 MHz DDR SDRAM 200/266/333/400 MHz DDR 3 GB 4×/8× No

Socket 775

Socket 940, 754

Socket 939, AM2

SiS created a multimedia chipset for the Xbox 360.[17]

Southbridge chips

Paired with later SiS chipsets, such as the 661GX/761GX, which adopt a standard two-chip chipset design (instead of single-chip, like the older SiS 630/730 series chipsets). SiS southbridges handle IDE, LAN (with MAC chip), audio (with CODEC chip), and other I/O connectivity. SiS' proprietary MuTIOL interconnect connects the southbridge chip to the northbridge, which contains the RAM controller (for chipsets targeted at Intel platforms) and interfaces with the CPU.

Southbridge Release Date NB/SB Interconnect PCI Express/Ports Serial ATA/RAID Parallel ATA USB Audio LAN MAC IEEE 1394
SiS 961 [4][18] ? MuTIOL®, 533MB/s N/A N/A 4x ATA/100 Devices 1.1, 6 ports AC'97 10/100 No
SiS 961B ? MuTIOL®, 533MB/s N/A N/A 4x ATA/100 Devices 1.1, 6 ports AC'97 10/100 No
SiS 962 ? MuTIOL®, 533MB/s N/A N/A 4x ATA/100 Devices 1.1, 6 ports AC'97 10/100 Yes
SiS 962L ? MuTIOL®, 533MB/s N/A N/A 4x ATA/100 Devices 1.1, 6 ports AC'97 10/100 No
SiS 963[8] 2002 MuTIOL® 1G, 1GB/s N/A N/A 4x ATA/133 Devices 2.0, 6 ports AC'97 10/100 Yes
SiS 963L[6] 2002 MuTIOL® 1G, 1GB/s N/A N/A 4x ATA/133 Devices 2.0, 6 ports AC'97 10/100 No
SiS 964[12] 2003 MuTIOL® 1G, 1GB/s N/A 2x SATA/150, RAID 0,1,JBOD 4x ATA/133 Devices 2.0, 8 ports AC'97 10/100 No
SiS 964L 2003 MuTIOL® 1G, 1GB/s N/A 2x SATA/150, RAID 0,1,JBOD 4x ATA/133 Devices 2.0, 8 ports AC'97 10/100 No
SiS 965 2005? MuTIOL® 1G, 1GB/s PCIe x1, 2 ports 4x SATA/150, RAID 0,1,0+1,JBOD 4x ATA/133 Devices 2.0, 8 ports AC'97 10/100/1000 (SiS 191)
SiS 965L 2005? MuTIOL® 1G, 1GB/s PCIe x1, 2 ports 2x SATA/150, RAID 0,1,JBOD 4x ATA/133 Devices 2.0, 8 ports AC'97 10/100 (SiS 190)
SiS 966[19] 2005? MuTIOL® 1G, 1GB/s PCIe x1, 2 ports 4x SATA/150 (AHCI), RAID 0,1,0+1,JBOD 4x ATA/133 Devices 2.0, 8 ports AC'97/HD Audio 10/100/1000 (SiS 191) No
SiS 966L 2005? MuTIOL® 1G, 1GB/s PCIe x1, 2 ports 2x SATA/150 (AHCI), RAID 0,1,JBOD 4x ATA/133 Devices 2.0, 8 ports AC'97/HD Audio 10/100 (SiS 190)
SiS 968[20] 2007? MuTIOL® 1G, 1GB/s PCIe x1, 2 ports 2x SATA/300 (AHCI), RAID 0,1,JBOD 2x ATA/133 Devices 2.0, 8 ports HD Audio 10/100/1000 No

Graphics chipsets

Some cards contain a 3D graphics accelerator but it is only functional with the SiS's Proprietary Windows-only driver (the company does not provide documentation for others to write drivers). However, the Linux kernel includes a working third party driver that, while not supporting 3D gaming, makes the cards usable under Linux.

Touch-Screen chipsets

See also

References

  1. ↑ Carroll, Mark. SiS acquires Rise CPU technology, EE Times, October 13, 1999.
  2. ↑ Masrani, P. Asus P5S-B Super Socket 7 mainboard Review, PC Stats, April 12, 2000.
  3. ↑ Lal Shimpi, Anand. SiS 648 - Taking Advantage of the P4 Situation, AnandTech, July 22, 2002.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 http://www.sis.com/news_room/news.aspx?m=23&region=en-global&rsn=1187
  5. ↑ http://www.sis.com/news_room/news.aspx?m=23&region=en-global&rsn=1201
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 http://www.sis.com/news_room/news.aspx?m=23&region=en-global&rsn=1224
  7. ↑ http://www.sis.com/news_room/news.aspx?m=23&region=en-global&rsn=1189
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 http://www.sis.com/UD_Data/elibrary/techdoc/intelchipsets/655_presentation.pdf
  9. ↑ http://www.sis.com/news_room/news.aspx?m=23&region=en-global&rsn=1229
  10. ↑ http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/sis735/
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/news1449.html
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 http://www.sis.com/UD_Data/elibrary/techdoc/amdchipsets/741_741g_presentation.pdf
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/roundupmobo/nforce2gt-sis746fx-roundup.html
  14. ↑ http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/roundupmobo/sis748-chipset.html
  15. ↑ Gasior, Geoff. , The Tech Report, June 25, 2004.
  16. ↑ Fink, Wesley. SiS 771 Reference Board Review, Hardware Secrets, October 16, 2006.
  17. ↑ Press Release: SiS Fuels Xbox 360 Storm with Powerful Multimedia Chipset, SiS, November 23, 2005.
  18. ↑ http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/sis645/
  19. ↑ Fink, Wesley. SiS 756: PCI Express for AMD Socket 939, AnandTech, September 13, 2005.
  20. ↑ Torres, Gabriel. SiS 672FX Reference Board Review, Hardware Secrets, July 31, 2007.

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