VIA Technologies, Inc. is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory. It was the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets. As a fabless semiconductor company, VIA conducts research and development of its chipsets in-house, then subcontracts the actual (silicon) manufacturing to third-party merchant foundries such as TSMC.
VIA Vinyl Audio Envy24MT chip of a PCI sound card
An IEEE 1394 FireWire-400 PCI card with the VIA VT6306 chipset
In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components on one or more integrated circuits that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. The chipset is usually found on the motherboard of computers. Chipsets are usually designed to work with a specific family of microprocessors. Because it controls communications between the processor and external devices, the chipset plays a crucial role in determining performance.
Intel i945GC Northbridge with Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2220 2.40 GHz on an Intel D945GCCR motherboard (c. 2007)
Part of an IBM ThinkPad T42 laptop motherboard showing the CPU, GPU, Northbridge (NB), and Southbridge (SB)
Intel Cannon Lake Platform Controller Hub (PCH) die