Chipse

A chipse literally means 'a collection of chips' and refers to the integration of various integrated circuits necessary for computer operation into one unit to reduce costs in PCs. Chipsets generally refer to motherboard chipsets, but they also exist in various expansion cards installed on the motherboard, such as Ethernet cards, graphics cards, and sound cards. Almost the first motherboard chipset in IBM PC-compatible machines was the NEAT chipset developed by Chips and Technologies in 1986, which consisted of 4 chips. Today, Intel, AMD, VIA, and others continue to develop PC-compatible motherboard chipsets.

Early IBM PC Chipset

The early IBM PC had a very large number of chips. The IBM PC (model: 5150) released in 1981 minimized proprietary IBM design due to short development deadlines and heavily used third-party components for the computer's major parts. Software used Microsoft products, the CPU and related devices used Intel products, and graphics were based on Motorola chips mixed with general-purpose logic ICs. The remaining gaps were also addressed not by developing custom chips but entirely through combinations of general-purpose logic ICs. The only thing that could be considered completely IBM-proprietary was the BIOS, the ROM that controlled the hardware.

Due to the non-integrated design, despite using many chips on the motherboard, only the timer controller, memory, CPU-related chips, and PC speaker were included on the motherboard. The only external data I/O interface was cassette tape connection. Everything else—I/O controllers, FDD controller, graphics, etc.—was modularized and required insertion of expansion cards. Other competitors' computers of this era had similar structures due to technological limitations, but they contrasted by achieving some degree of integration to secure space on the motherboard and incorporating graphics chips and several key I/O controllers. Specifically, it had the following distributed structure:

Graphics design:

• Motorola MC6845: CRT controller

• More than 60 general-purpose logic ICs

Motherboard design:

• Intel 8088: 16-bit central processing unit. Performs computations in the computer.

• Intel 8284: Clock oscillator. Supplies clock signals to the CPU.

• Intel 8288: Bus controller

• Intel 8253: Timer controller

• Intel 8259: IRQ controller

• Intel 8237: DMA controller

• Intel 8255: Programmable peripheral interface

• More than 30 general-purpose logic ICs