Digital ICs/DSPs: PC Chip Set Adds PCIExpress I/O For AMD And 64-Bit CPU Family

Dec. 8, 2004

Staking its claim as the first PCI Express chip set for the AMD Athlon processor, the K8T890 opens up the AMD64 processor platform (Athlon 64, Opteron, and Sempron CPUs) to PCI Express. It supports high-performance PCI Express x16 graphics cards that transfer data at 4 Gbytes/s, both upstream and downstream. The chip set additionally supports up to four PCI Express x1 connections for peripheral interfaces. Each x1 port offers a bandwidth of 250 Mbytes/s per direction. Based on the VIA Flex Express architecture, the chip set routes the PCI Express x1 connections directly through the North Bridge, avoiding potential data bottlenecks in the chip set's North-to-South Bridge link as well as reducing latency. In quantities of 1000 units, the k8T890 costs $30 each.

VIA Technologies Inc.
www.via.com.tw

About the Author

Dave Bursky

Technologist

Dave Bursky, the founder of New Ideas in Communications, a publication website featuring the blog column Chipnastics – the Art and Science of Chip Design. He is also president of PRN Engineering, a technical writing and market consulting company. Prior to these organizations, he spent about a dozen years as a contributing editor to Chip Design magazine. Concurrent with Chip Design, he was also the technical editorial manager at Maxim Integrated Products, and prior to Maxim, Dave spent over 35 years working as an engineer for the U.S. Army Electronics Command and an editor with Electronic Design Magazine.