Timeline for answer to Is there a theoretical possibility of having a full computer on a silicon wafer instead of a motherboard? by Michael
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
Post Revisions
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 4, 2021 at 19:50 | history | edited | Michael | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 21 characters in body
|
| Jan 4, 2021 at 11:37 | comment | added | Michael | @JhonnyS: If you zoom in you can see that a lot of it is actually unpopulated. Maybe the small board size also makes them appear more numerous. The back side is relatively empty: extreme.pcgameshardware.de/attachments/dsc_1558-jpg.1043292 so maybe more components on the front side than usual. I just picked this board as example because it doesn’t even have a chipset, but is still a complete, modern AMD Ryzen computer/mainboard. | |
| Jan 4, 2021 at 11:23 | comment | added | Andrew Morton | @JhonnyS If that was a microATX board then it would have four PCIe slots. It has none. ASRock refer to it as "Small APU Form Factor", and it may be unique to them. | |
| Jan 4, 2021 at 6:59 | comment | added | Peter Cordes | The ethernet PHY (physical layer) is normally also a separate chip, so it can do essentially analog things. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHY). Many of the I/O ports (audio like you mentioned, network, and maybe video), probably aren't wired directly to the chipset or the CPU, although the USB ports might be. So yes, "I/O stuff", and most of the work that a NIC does is integrated. Dealing with different voltage levels is AFAIK often a reason to have an interface chip of some kind; also maybe to reduce the chance of over-voltage damage on one port taking out the whole chipset. | |
| Jan 3, 2021 at 21:30 | comment | added | user0193 | I believe this is ATX-micro board, and bit curious if the requirement to package too many components into tiny die necessitates the use of too many decoupling capacitors? | |
| Jan 3, 2021 at 7:24 | history | edited | Michael | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 16 characters in body
|
| Jan 3, 2021 at 7:18 | history | answered | Michael | CC BY-SA 4.0 |